"Forgive me, forgive me!" cried Lyle, melted at once, and humbled too.
"I will ask no more--I do not wish to hear. It is misery enough for me
to know that you can never be mine, that I must not love you any more!"

"But you may regard me tenderly still. You may learn to feel for me as
a sister--an elder sister. That is the fittest relation between us.
You yourself will think so, in time." And Olive truly believed what she
said. Perhaps she judged him rightly: that this passion was indeed only
a boyish romance, such as most men have in their youth, which fades
painlessly in the realities of after years. But now, at least, it was
most deep and sincere.

As Miss Rothesay spoke, once more as in his childish days Lyle threw
himself at her feet, taking both her hands, and looking up in her face
with the wildest adoration.

"I must--must worship you still; I always shall! You are so good--so
pure; I look up to you as to some saint. I was mad to think of you in
any other way. But you will not forget me; you will guide and counsel
me always. Only, if you should be taken away from me--if you should
marry"----

"I shall never marry," said Olive, uttering the words she had uttered
many a time, but never more solemnly than now.

Lyle regarded her for a long and breathless space, and then laying his
head on her knees, he wept like a child.

That moment, at the suddenly-opened door there stood Christal Manners!
Like a vision, she came--and passed. Lyle never saw her at all. But
Olive did; and when the young man had departed, amidst all her own
agitation, there flashed before her, as it were an omen of some woe to
come--that livid face, lit with its eyes of fire.

Not long had Olive to ponder, for the door once more opened, and
Christal came in. Her hair had all fallen down, her eyes had the same
intense glare, her bonnet and shawl were still hanging on her arm. She
flung them aside, and stood in the doorway.

"Miss Rothesay, I wish to speak with you; and that no one may interrupt
us, I will do this." She bolted and locked the door, and then clenched
her fingers over the key, as if it had been a living thing for her to
crush.

Olive sat utterly confounded. For in her sister she saw two likenesses;
one, of the woman who had once shrieked after her the name of
"Rothesay,"--the other, that of her own father in his rare moments
of passion, as she had seen him the night he had called her by that
opprobrious word which had plante