already."

"Have you any more secrets of the past that you are keeping from me?"

"None. Not one. You may take my honour upon it, Eliza. And now let us--"

She had started forward in her chair; a red flush darkening her pale
cheeks, "Philip! Philip! am I legally married? Did you describe yourself
as a _bachelor_ in the license?"

"No, as a widower. I got the license in London, you know."

"And no one read it?"

"No one save he who married us: Robert Grame, and I don't suppose he
noticed it."

Robert Grame! The flush on Eliza's cheeks grew deeper.

"Did you _love_ her?"

"I suppose I thought so when I married her. It did not take long to
disenchant me," he added with a harsh laugh.

"What was her Christian name?"

"Dolly. Dora, I believe, by register. My dear wife, I have told you all.
In compassion to me let us drop the subject, now and for ever."

Was Eliza Hamlyn--sitting there with pale, compressed lips, sullen eyes,
and hands interlocked in pain--already beginning to reap the fruit she
had sown as Eliza Monk by her rebellious marriage? Perhaps so. But not
as she would have to reap it later on.

Mr. and Mrs. Hamlyn spent nearly all that year in travelling. In
September they came to Peacock's Range, taking it furnished for a term
of old Mr. and Mrs. Peveril, who had not yet come back to it. It stood
midway, as may be remembered, between Church Leet and Church Dykely, so
that Eliza was close to her old home. Late in October a little boy was
born: it would be hard to say which was the prouder of him, Philip
Hamlyn or his wife.

"What would you like his name to be?" Philip asked her one day.

"I should like it to be Walter," said Mrs. Hamlyn.

"_Walter!_"

"Yes, I should. I like the name for itself, but I once had a dear little
brother named Walter, just a year younger than I. He died before we came
home to England. Have you any objection to the name?"

"Oh, no, no objection," he slowly said. "I was only thinking whether you
would have any. It was the name given to my first child."

"That can make no possible difference--it was not my child," was her
haughty answer. So the baby was named Walter James; the latter name also
chosen by Eliza, because it had been old Mr. Monk's.

In the following spring Mr. Hamlyn had to go to the West Indies. Eliza
remained at home; and during this time she became reconciled to her
father.

Hubert brought it about. For Hubert lived yet. But he was just a shadow
and