t luxury: luxury has been your
curse, Etta. A moderate sum will be paid to you yearly for your dress and
personal expenses, but if overdrawn or misapplied it will be curtailed
or stopped altogether. Your maintenance will be arranged between the
Alnwicks and myself, and, unless I give you permission to write,--which
is distinctly not my purpose now,--no letter from you will be read or
answered, and I forbid all such communication.'

'I cannot--I cannot bear it!' she screamed, springing to her feet; but he
waved her back with such a look that her arms dropped to her side.

'No scene, I beg,' in a tone of disgust. 'Let me finish quietly what I
have to say.--Miss Garston,' turning to me, 'could you spare Chatty to
help my cousin pack her clothes and books? for we shall start early in
the morning. Mr. Alnwick has promised to meet us half-way.'

'I can set Chatty at liberty for the day,' was my answer.

'Very well. Etta, you may as well go at once. Your meals will be served
in your room. I do not wish you to resume your usual habits: this is my
house, not yours. Your only course now must be obedience and submission.
Let your future conduct atone to me for the past, that I may remember
without shame that I have a cousin Etta.'

He turned away then, but I could see his face working. He had dearly
loved this miserable creature, and had cared for her as though she had
been his sister, and he could not leave her without this vague word of
hope. Did she understand him, I wonder,--that in the future he might
bring himself to forgive her? I heard her weeping bitterly in her room
afterwards, and Chatty, in her fussy, good-natured way, trying to comfort
her: the girl had a kind heart.

Early in the afternoon Mr. Hamilton joined us in the turret-room.
Directly he came in and sat down by his sister's couch I knew that he
meant to tell her everything,--that he thought it best that she should
hear it from him.

He told it very quietly, without any explanation or expression of
feeling; but it was not possible for Gladys to hear that Eric's name was
cleared without keen emotion. 'Oh, thank God for this other mercy!' she
sobbed, bursting into tears; and presently, as he went on, she crept
closer to him, and before he had finished she had clasped his arm with
her two hands and her face was hidden in them.

'Oh, Giles! if you only knew what she has made me suffer!' she whispered.
'We should have understood each other better if Etta had