hich I had found myself secretly harrowed had not sprung from a very
different cause--a cause for which my persistent love was more to blame
than the temper of her relative. The aversion she had once shown to my
attentions had yielded long ago to a shy but seemingly sincere
appreciation of them, and gleams of what I was fain to call real feeling
had shown themselves now and then in her softened manner, culminating
to-day in that soft pressure of my hand which had awakened my hopes and
made me forget all the doubts and caprices of a disturbing courtship.

But, had I interpreted that strong, nervous pressure aright? Had it
necessarily meant love? Might it not have sprung from a sudden desperate
resolution to accept a devotion which offered her a way out of
difficulties especially galling to one of her gentle but lofty spirit?
Her expression when she caught my look of joy had little of the demure
tenderness of a maiden blushing at her first involuntary avowal. There
was shrinking in it, but it was the shrinking of a frightened woman, not
of an abashed girl; and when I strove to follow her, the gesture with
which she waved me back had that in it which would have alarmed a more
exacting lover. Had I mistaken my darling's feelings? Was her heart
still cold, her affection unwon? Or--thought insupportable!--had she
secretly yielded to another what she had so long denied me, and----?

"Ah!" quoth Sinclair at this juncture, "I see that I have roused you at
last." And unconsciously his tone grew lighter and his eye lost the
strained look which had made it the eye of a stranger. "You begin to see
that a question of the most serious import is before us, and that this
question must be answered before we separate for the night."

"I do," said I.

His relief was evident.

"Then, so much is gained. The next point is, how are we to settle our
doubts? We cannot approach either of these ladies with questions. A girl
wretched enough to contemplate suicide would be especially careful to
conceal both her misery and its cause. Neither can we order a search to
be made for an object so small that it can be concealed about the
person."

"Yet this jewel must be recovered. Listen, Sinclair. I will have a talk
with Dorothy, you with Gilbertine. A kind talk, mind you! one that will
soothe, not frighten. If a secret lurks in either breast, our tenderness
should find it out. Only, as you love me, promise to show me the same
frankness I here promi