"What you say is very odd."

"Why odd?"

"Simply because mine are the same."

"Are they the same? I once thought, Laura, that you did love
him;--that you meant to be his wife."

Lady Laura sat for a while without making any reply to this. She
sat with her elbow on the table and with her face leaning on her
hand,--thinking how far it would tend to her comfort if she spoke in
true confidence. Violet during the time never took her eyes from her
friend's face, but remained silent as though waiting for an answer.
She had been very explicit as to her feelings. Would Laura Kennedy be
equally explicit? She was too clever to forget that such plainness
of speech would be, must be more difficult to Lady Laura than to
herself. Lady Laura was a married woman; but she felt that her friend
would have been wrong to search for secrets, unless she were ready to
tell her own. It was probably some such feeling which made Lady Laura
speak at last.

"So I did, nearly--" said Lady Laura; "very nearly. You told me just
now that you had money, and could therefore do as you pleased. I had
no money, and could not do as I pleased."

"And you told me also that I had no reason for thinking that he cared
for me."

"Did I? Well;--I suppose you have no reason. He did care for me. He
did love me."

"He told you so?"

"Yes;--he told me so."

"And how did you answer him?"

"I had that very morning become engaged to Mr. Kennedy. That was my
answer."

"And what did he say when you told him?"

"I do not know. I cannot remember. But he behaved very well."

"And now,--if he were to love me, you would grudge me his love?"

"Not for that reason,--not if I know myself. Oh no! I would not be so
selfish as that."

"For what reason then?"

"Because I look upon it as written in heaven that you are to be
Oswald's wife."

"Heaven's writings then are false," said Violet, getting up and
walking away.

In the meantime Phineas was very wretched at home. When he reached
his lodgings after leaving the House,--after his short conversation
with Mr. Monk,--he tried to comfort himself with what that gentleman
had said to him. For a while, while he was walking, there had been
some comfort in Mr. Monk's words. Mr. Monk had much experience, and
doubtless knew what he was saying,--and there might yet be hope. But
all this hope faded away when Phineas was in his own rooms. There
came upon him, as he looked round them, an idea that he had no
business to