n
you. She had just come to Lenox, I knew; she could know nothing of our
intimacy, our relations; and this seemed like the renewal of something
old--something that had been going on before. Had she any claim on
you? I wondered. And then, too, you were so provokingly reticent about
her whenever her name had been mentioned before."

"Was I? What a fool I was! But, Bessie dear, I could not say to even
you, then, that I believed Fanny Meyrick was in--cared a great deal
for me."

"I understand," said Bessie nodding. "We'll skip that, and take it for
granted. But you see _I_ couldn't take anything for granted but just
what I saw that day; and the little memorandum-book and Fanny's
reminiscences nearly killed me. I don't know how I sat through it all.
I tried to avoid you all the rest of the day. I wanted to think, and
to find out the truth from Fanny."

"I should think you _did_ avoid me pretty successfully, leaving me to
dine coldly at the hotel, and then driving all the afternoon till
train-time."

"It was in talking to Fanny that afternoon that I discovered how she
felt toward you. She has no concealment about her, not any, and I
could read her heart plainly enough. But then she hinted at her
father's treatment of you; thought he had discouraged you, rebuffed
you, and reasoned so that I fairly thought there might be truth in it,
_remembering it was before you knew me."_

"Listen one minute, Bessie, till I explain that. It's my belief, and
always was, that that shrewd old fellow, Henry Meyrick, saw very
clearly how matters were all along--saw how the impetuous Miss Fanny
was--"

"_Falling in love_: don't pause for a 'more tenderer word,' Charlie.
Sam Weller couldn't find any."

"Well, falling in love, if you _will_ say it--and that it was
decidedly a difficult situation for me. I remember so well that night
on the piazza, when Fanny clung about me like a mermaid, he bade her
sharply go and change her dripping garments, and what Fanny calls 'a
decidedly queer' expression came into his face. He could not say
anything, poor old chap! and he always behaved with great courtesy to
me. I am sure he divined that I was a most unimpassioned actor in that
high-comedy plunge into the Hudson."

"Very well: I believe it, I'm sure, but, you see, how could I know
then what was or was not true? Then it was that I resolved to give you
leave--or rather give her leave to try. I had written my note in the
morning, saying _no_ finall