ered. "I was not thinking of it,
but only that you had been so much with Mr. Edmonson, that you must miss
him."

"I don't know," answered Bulchester. After a moment's hesitation he
added, "I see you look surprised: the intimacy between us seemed to you
close?"

"Why, yes, it did," assented Elizabeth, "very close. But I don't see why
I should say so, or how it should be any affair of mine."

Bulchester looked uncomfortable. "All the same," he answered, "you are
judging me, and thinking me disloyal, and that it is a strange time to
forget one's friendship when the friend has gone to peril life for his
country."

"Perhaps something like that did come to me," confessed Elizabeth.

"You can't judge," pursued the other eagerly, speaking to Elizabeth, but
thinking of the impression that this might be making upon Katie. "There
are things I cannot explain, things that have made me draw away from
Edmonson. It is not because he has gone to the war and I have found
reason to stay at home. There are impressions that come sometimes like
dreams, you can't put them into words. But without being able to do
that, you are sure certain things are so. No, not sure." He stopped
again. It was impossible to explain.

"Don't stop there," cried Katie. "How tantalizing. Either you should not
have begun, or you ought to go on. You must," she insisted with a
gesture of impatience, while her eyes met his with a smile that always
conquered him.

"I've nothing to say,--that is, there is nothing I can say. One doesn't
betray one's friends. But Edmonson--" He halted again.

"Yes, but Mr. Edmonson," she repeated, "is a delightful man when one is
on a frolic. What else about him?"

"Oh--nothing."

The girl frowned. "Very well," she said. "Everybody trusts Mistress
Royal. I understand it is I who am unworthy of your confidence. As you
please."

"You!" he cried. "You unworthy of my confidence!" There was
consternation in his tones. "You?" he repeated, looking at her
helplessly. The idea was too much for him.

"Certainly. Or you would at least tell us what you mean about Mr.
Edmonson, even if your former friendship for him--that is supposing it
gone now--prevented you from going into details." She spoke earnestly
and wondered as she did so why she had never felt any curiosity before
as to the break of the intimacy between Edmonson and his friend, for,
evidently, there had been a coolness, something more than mere
separation. As Elizabeth sat