g to break down and
cry. How little she was, and sweet! Her eyes pleaded, just as they did
in that one look in the church. How could anybody be unkind to her?

"I'm quite all right," said Betty with a forced smile, siting up very
straight.

"Perhaps I'd better introduce myself," he said, trying to speak in a
very commonplace tone. "I'm just a lawyer that your friend Miss Jane
Carson sent out to see if I could be of any service to you. It may
possibly make things a little easier for you if I explain that while I
never had heard of you before, and have no possible connection with your
family or friends, I happened to be at your wedding!"

"Oh!" said Betty with a little agonized breath.

"Do you know Mrs. Bryce Cochrane?" he asked.

Betty could not have got any whiter, but her eyes seemed to blanch a
trifle.

"A little," she said in a very small voice.

"Well, she is my cousin."

"Oh!" said Betty again.

"Her husband was unable to accompany her to the wedding, and so I went
in his place to escort Isabel. I knew nothing of your affairs either
before or after the wedding, until this announcement was brought to my
notice, and Miss Carson called on me."

Betty took the paper in her trembling fingers, and looked into her own
pictured eyes. Then everything seemed to swim before her for a moment.
She pressed her hand against her throat and set her white lips firmly,
looking up at the stranger with a sudden terror and comprehension.

"You want to get that five thousand dollars!" she said, speaking the
words in a daze of trouble. "Oh, I haven't got five thousand dollars!
Not now! But perhaps I could manage to get it if you would be good
enough to wait just a little, till I can find a way. Oh, if you knew
what it means to me!"

Warren Reyburn sprang to his feet in horror, a flame of anger leaping
into his eyes.

"Five thousand dollars be hanged!" he said fiercely. "Do I look like
that kind of a fellow? It may seem awfully queer to you for an utter
stranger to be butting into your affairs like this unless I did have
some ulterior motive, but I swear to you that I have none. I came out
here solely because I saw that you were in great likelihood of being
found by the people from whom you had evidently run away. Miss Stanhope,
I stood where I could watch your face when you came up the aisle at your
wedding, and something in your eyes just before you dropped made me wish
I could knock that bridegroom down and take care o