ke that: there is no cause for fear. It is a great
secret, and you must never speak of it, even to me,--but Lady Betty is
engaged to her cousin Claude.'

For a moment he stared at me incredulously. 'Impossible! you must have
been deceived,' I heard him mutter.

'On the contrary, I leave other people to be duped,' was my somewhat cool
answer. 'You need not doubt my news: Gladys is my informant: only, as I
have just told you, it is a great secret. Mr. Hamilton is not to know
yet, and Gladys writes most of the letters. Poor little Lady Betty is in
constant terror that she will be found out, and they are waiting until
Captain Hamilton has promotion and comes home in November.'

He had not lost one word that I said: as he stood there, bareheaded, in
the morning sunshine that was tingeing his beard with gold, I heard his
low, fervent 'Thank God! then it was not that;' but when he turned to me
his face was radiant, his eyes bright and vivid; there was renewed hope
and energy in his aspect.

'Ursula, you have come like the dove with the olive-branch. Is this
really true? It was good of you to come and tell me this.'

'I do not see the goodness, Max.'

'Well, perhaps not; but you have made me your debtor. I like to owe this
to you,--my first gleam of hope. Now, you must tell me one thing. Does
Miss Darrell know of this engagement?'

'She does.'

'Stop a moment: I feel myself getting confused here. I am to ask no
questions: you can tell me nothing more. But I must make this clear to
myself: How long has she known, Ursula? a day? a week?'

'Suppose you substitute the word months,' I observed scornfully. 'I know
no dates, but Miss Darrell has most certainly been acquainted with her
cousin's engagement for months.'

'Oh, this is worse than I thought,' he returned, in a troubled tone.
'This is almost too terrible to believe. She has known all I suffered on
that man's account, and yet she never undeceived me. Can women be so
cruel? Why did she not come to me and say frankly, "I have made a
mistake; I have unintentionally misled you: it is Lady Betty, not Gladys,
who is in love with her cousin"? Good heavens! to leave me in this
ignorance, and never to say the word that would put me out of my misery!'

I was silent, though silence was a torture to me. Even, now the extent of
Miss Darrell's duplicity had not clearly dawned on him. He complained
that she had left him to suffer through ignorance of the truth; but the
idea had