ing very
particular----"

"Well, you know there is," Bob interrupted.

She turned her head quickly toward him. "I know there is? What do you
mean?"

"You've got Harry Tristram's letter, I suppose?"

"What do you know of Harry Tristram's letter?"

"I haven't seen it, but I know what's in it all the same."

"How do you know?"

"He came up to Mingham to-day and told me." Bob sat down by her,
uninvited; certainly the belief in boldness was carrying him far. But he
did not quite anticipate the next development. She sprang up, sprang
away from his neighborhood, crying,

"Then how dare you come here to-day? Yes, I've got the letter--just an
hour ago. Have you come to--to triumph over me?"

"What an extraordinary idea!" remarked Bob in the slow tones of a
genuine astonishment.

"You'd call it to condole, I suppose! That's rather worse."

Bob confined himself to a long look at her. It brought him no
enlightenment.

"You must see that you're the very----" She broke off abruptly, and,
turning away, began to walk up and down.

"The very what?" asked Bob.

She turned and looked at him; she broke into a peevishly nervous laugh.
Anybody but Bob--really anybody but Bob--would have known! The laugh
encouraged him a little, which again it had no right to do.

"I thought you'd be in trouble, and like a bit of cheering up," he said
with a diplomatic air that was ludicrously obvious.

She considered a moment, taking another turn about the room to do it.

"What did Harry Tristram say to you?"

"Oh, he told me the whole thing. That--that he's chucked it up, you
know."

"I mean about me."

"He didn't say much about you. Just that it was all ended, you know."

"Did he think I should accept his withdrawal?"

"Yes, he seemed quite sure of it," answered Bob. "I had my doubts, but
he seemed quite sure of it." Apparently Bob considered his statement
reassuring and comforting.

"You had your doubts?"

"Yes. I thought perhaps----"

"You were wrong then, and Harry Tristram was right." She flung the words
at him in a fierce hostility. "Now he's not Lord Tristram any longer, I
don't want to marry him." She paused. "You believe he isn't, don't you?
There's no doubt?"

"I believe him all right. He's a fellow you can rely on."

"But it's all so strange. Why has he done it? Well, that doesn't matter.
At any rate he's right about me."

Bob sat stolidly in his chair. He did not know at all what to say, but
he did not mean