leaded some pity for him.'

'And is there no kind word to say of _me_, Kate?'

'O Nina, how ashamed you make me of my violence, when I dare to blame you!
but if I did not love you so dearly, I could better bear you should have a
fault.'

'I have only one, then?'

'I know of no great one but this. I mean, I know of none that endangers
good-nature and right feeling.'

'And are you so sure that this does? Are you so sure that what you are
faulting is not the manner and the way of a world you have not seen? that
all these levities, as you would call them, are not the ordinary wear of
people whose lives are passed where there is more tolerance and less pain?'

'Be serious, Nina, for a moment, and own that it was by intention you were
in the approach when Captain Curtis rode away: that you said something to
him, or looked something--perhaps both--on which he got down from his horse
and walked beside you for full a mile?'

'All true,' said Nina calmly. 'I confess to every part of it.'

'I'd far rather that you said you were sorry for it.'

'But I am not; I'm very glad--I'm very proud of it.

Yes, look as reproachfully as you like, Kate! "very proud" was what I
said.'

'Then I am indeed sorry,' said Kate, growing pale as she spoke.

'I don't think, after all this sharp lecturing of me, that you deserve
much of my confidence, and if I make you any, Kate, it is not by way
of exculpation; for I do not accept your blame; it is simply out of
caprice--mind that, and that I am not thinking of defending myself.'

'I can easily believe that,' said Kate dryly.

And the other continued: 'When Captain Curtis was talking to your father,
and discussing the chances of capturing Donogan, he twice or thrice
mentioned Harper and Fry--names which somehow seemed familiar to me; and
on thinking the matter over when I went to my room, I opened Donogan's
pocket-book and there found how these names had become known to me. Harper
and Fry were tanners, in Cork Street, and theirs was one of the addresses
by which, if I had occasion to warn Donogan, I could write to him. On
hearing these names from Curtis, it struck me that there might be treachery
somewhere. Was it that these men themselves had turned traitors to the
cause? or had another betrayed them? Whichever way the matter went, Donogan
was evidently in great danger; for this was one of the places he regarded
as perfectly safe.

'What was to be done? I dared not ask advice on any si