t the courage, after all."

"I'll be glad to do anything I can."

"It's--well--Oh, dear, I can't. Let's walk a little, while I think how
to put it."

They began to walk, which took a weight off my mind, as I had been
forced to hear every word thus far spoken, and was dreading what might
follow, since I was perfectly helpless to warn them. The platform was
built around the station, and in a moment they were out of hearing.

Before many seconds were over, however, they had walked round the
building, and I heard Lord Ralles say--

"You really don't mean that he's insulted you?"

"That is just what I do mean," cried Madge, indignantly. "It's been
almost past endurance. I haven't dared to tell any one, but he had the
cruelty, the meanness, on Hance's trail to threaten that--"

At that point the walkers turned the corner again, and I could not
hear the rest of the sentence. But I had heard more than enough to
make me grow hot with mortification, even while I could hardly believe
I had understood aright. Madge had been so kind to me lately that I
couldn't think she had been feeling as bitterly as she spoke. That
such an apparently frank girl was a consummate actress wasn't to be
thought, and yet--I remembered how well she had played her part on
Hance's trail; but even that wouldn't convince me. Proof of her
duplicity came quickly enough, for, while I was still thinking, the
walkers were round again, and Lord Ralles was saying--

"Why haven't you complained to your father or brothers?"

"Because I knew they would resent his conduct to me, and--"

"Of course they would," cried her companion, interrupting. "But why
should you object to that?"

"Because of the letters," explained Madge. "Don't you see that if we
made him angry he would betray us to Mr. Camp, and--"

Then they passed out of hearing, leaving me almost desperate, both at
being an eavesdropper to such a conversation, and that Madge could
think so meanly of me. To say it, too, to Lord Ralles made it cut all
the deeper, as any fellow who had been in love will understand.

Round they came again in a moment, and I braced myself for the lash
of the whip that I felt was coming. I didn't escape it, for Madge was
saying--

"Can you conceive of a man pretending to care for a girl and yet
treating her so? I can't tell you the grief, the mortification, I
have endured." She spoke with a half-sob in her throat, as if she was
struggling not to cry, which made me wi