ilence was asked or given, I knew he considered
it a confidence. Now that it is all over, I know that I may tell my
wife, and she will help me comfort him."

"Tell on, Geoffrey, I hear you."

"Well, dear, when we went gypsying long ago, on the night you and Adam
lost the boat, as I sat drying your boots, and privately adoring them in
spite of the mud, I made a discovery. Adam loved, was on some sort of
probation, and would be married in June. He was slow to speak of it, but
I understood, and last night when I went to his room with him, I asked
how he had fared. Sylvia, it would have made your heart ache to have
seen his face, as he said in that brief way of his--'Geoffrey, the woman
I loved is married, ask me nothing more.' I never shall; but I know, by
the change I see in him, that the love was very dear, the wound very
deep."

"Poor Adam! how can we help him?"

"Let him do as he likes. I will take him to his old haunts, and busy him
with my affairs till he forgets his own. In the evenings we will have
Prue, Mark, and Jessie over here, will surround him with social
influences, and make the last hours of the day the cheerfullest; then
he won't lie awake and think all night, as I suspect he has been doing
of late. Sylvia, I should like to see that woman; though I could find it
in my heart to hate her for her perfidy to such a man."

Sylvia's head was bent as if to inhale the sweetness of the flower she
held, and all her husband saw was the bright hair blowing in the wind.

"I pity her for her loss as well as hate her. Now, let us talk of
something else, or my tell-tale face will betray that we have been
talking of him, when we meet Adam."

They did so, and when Warwick put up his curtain, the first sight he
saw, was his friend walking with his young wife under the red-leaved
maples, in the sunshine. The look Moor had spoken of, came into his
eyes, darkening them with the shadow of despair. A moment it gloomed
there, then passed, for Honor said reproachfully to Love--"They are
happy, should not that content you?"

"It shall!" answered the master of both, as he dropped the curtain and
turned away.

In pursuance of his kindly plan, Moor took Adam out for a long tramp
soon after breakfast, and Sylvia and Miss Dane sat down to sew. In the
absence of the greater fear, Sylvia soon forgot the lesser one, and
began to feel at ease to study her new relative and covet her esteem.

Faith was past thirty, shapely and tall