to shape a word of accusation against him. It was
agony to her to feel her idol disgraced and cast down from his high
pedestal; yet she had not learned any way of concealing or
misrepresenting the truth.

"You know he did it?" said Felicita.

"Yes, I know it," she whispered.

For a minute or two Felicita stood, with her white hands resting on
Phebe's shoulders, gazing into her mournful face with keen, questioning
eyes. Then, with a rapid flush of crimson, betraying a strong and
painful heart-throb, which suffused her face for an instant and left it
paler than before, she pressed her lips on the girl's sunburnt forehead.

"Tell nobody else," she murmured; "keep the secret for his sake and
mine."

Before Phebe could reply she turned away, and, with a steady,
unfaltering step, went back to her study and locked herself in.

CHAPTER VII.

AN INTERRUPTED DAY-DREAM.

Felicita's study was so quiet a room, quite remote from the street, that
it was almost a wonder the noise of the crowd had reached her. But this
morning there had been a pleasant tumult of excitement in her own brain,
which had prevented her from falling into an absorbed reverie, such as
she usually indulged in, and rendered her peculiarly susceptible to
outward influences. All her senses had been awake to-day.

On her desk lay the two volumes of a new book, handsomely got up, with
pages yet uncut as it had come from the publishers. A dozen times she
had looked at the title-page, as if unable to convince herself of the
reality, and read her own name--Felicita Riversdale Sefton. It was the
first time her name as an author had been published, though for the last
three years she had from time to time written anonymously for magazines.
This was her own book; thought out, written, revised, and completed in
her chosen solitude and secrecy. No one knew of it; possibly Roland
suspected something, but he had not ventured to make any inquiries, and
she had no reason to believe that he even suspected its existence. It
was simply altogether her own; no other mind had any part or share in
it.

There was something like rapture in her delight. The book was a good
book, she was sure of it. She had not succeeded in making it as perfect
as her ideal, but she had not signally failed. It did in a fair degree
represent her inmost thoughts and fancies. Yet she could not feel quite
sure that the two volumes were real, and the letter from the publisher,
a friendly a