very well what it was that Calderwell had said to occasion that pause.
Must _always_ she be reminded that no one expected Bertram Henshaw to
love any girl--except to paint?

"But--but Mr. Calderwell must know about the engagement--now," she
stammered.

"Very likely, but I have not happened to hear from him since my arrival
in Boston. We do not correspond."

There was a long silence, then Arkwright spoke again.

"I think I understand now--many things. I wonder I did not see them
before; but I never thought of Bertram Henshaw's being--If Calderwell
hadn't said--" Again Arkwright stopped with his sentence half complete,
and again Billy winced. "I've been a blind fool. I was so intent on my
own--I've been a blind fool; that's all," repeated Arkwright, with a
break in his voice.

Billy tried to speak, but instead of words, there came only a choking
sob.

Arkwright turned sharply.

"Miss Neilson, don't--please," he begged. "There is no need that you
should suffer--too."

"But I am so ashamed that such a thing _could_ happen," she faltered.
"I'm sure, some way, I must be to blame. But I never thought. I was
blind, too. I was wrapped up in my own affairs. I never suspected. I
never even _thought_ to suspect! I thought of course you knew. It was
just the music that brought us together, I supposed; and you were
just like one of the family, anyway. I always thought of you as Aunt
Hannah's--" She stopped with a vivid blush.

"As Aunt Hannah's niece, Mary Jane, of course," supplied Arkwright,
bitterly, turning back to his old position. "And that was my own fault,
too. My name, Miss Neilson, is Michael Jeremiah," he went on wearily,
after a moment's hesitation, his voice showing his utter abandonment to
despair. "When a boy at school I got heartily sick of the 'Mike' and
the 'Jerry' and the even worse 'Tom and Jerry' that my young friends
delighted in; so as soon as possible I sought obscurity and peace in 'M.
J.' Much to my surprise and annoyance the initials proved to be little
better, for they became at once the biggest sort of whet to people's
curiosity. Naturally, the more determined persistent inquirers were to
know the name, the more determined I became that they shouldn't. All
very silly and very foolish, of course. Certainly it seems so now," he
finished.

Billy was silent. She was trying to find something, _anything_, to say,
when Arkwright began speaking again, still in that dull, hopeless voice
that Billy th