y reason, Anna?"

"I have," she said after a pause.

"What reason, dear?"

She thought for a moment before she replied. "I was obliged to tell
him the reason, Mrs. Lovel; but I don't think that I need tell
anybody else. Of course I must tell mamma."

"Does your mamma know it?"

"Not yet."

"And is it a reason that must last for ever?"

"Yes;--for ever. But I do not know why everybody is to be angry with
me. Other girls may do as they please. If you are angry with me I had
better go back to London at once."

"I do not know that anybody has been angry with you. We may be
disappointed without being angry." That was all that was said, and
then Lady Anna was left to dress for dinner. At dinner Lord Lovel had
so far composed himself as to be able to speak to his cousin, and an
effort at courtesy was made by them all,--except by the rector. But
the evening passed away in a manner very different from any that had
gone before it.

CHAPTER XVIII.

TOO HEAVY FOR SECRETS.

During that night the young lord was still thinking of his future
conduct,--of what duty and honour demanded of him, and of the
manner in which he might best make duty and honour consort with his
interests. In all the emergencies of his short life he had hitherto
had some one to advise him,--some elder friend whose counsel he might
take even though he would seem to make little use of it when it
was offered to him. He had always somewhat disdained aunt Julia,
but nevertheless aunt Julia had been very useful to him. In latter
days, since the late Earl's death, when there came upon him, as the
first of his troubles, the necessity of setting aside that madman's
will, Mr. Flick had been his chief counsellor; and yet in all his
communications with Mr. Flick he had assumed to be his own guide and
master. Now it seemed that he must in truth guide himself, but he
knew not how to do it. Of one thing he felt certain. He must get away
from Yoxham and hurry up to London.

It behoved him to keep his cousin's secret; but would he not be
keeping it with a sanctity sufficiently strict if he imparted it to
one sworn friend,--a friend who should be bound not to divulge it
further without his consent? If so, the Solicitor-General should be
his friend. An intimacy had grown up between the great lawyer and his
noble client, not social in its nature, but still sufficiently close,
as Lord Lovel thought, to admit of such confidence. He had begun to
be aware that