but made no other movement. She seemed to grow
rigid, and the hand which had been playing with the fringe of her girdle
remained fixed in its arrested action.

"You? It was you? How ---- you?"

"I had to see him. So I went to him. Now he can easily deny that you
were there. But he won't betray me. People must think what they please.
But I am telling you--because you, at least, ought to know the truth."

"And yet it is not my business!"

"What do you mean? Not your business?"

"How can it be my business to ask what lady went to--to his lodgings?"

"But you would have wondered----"

"Yes, I should have wondered. I could not have helped that."

"Mr. Orange and I have been friends, as you know, for some time. He knew
me years ago before he--he met you. I was quite a little girl. I
remember I used to hold his hand when I walked in the gardens by his
side."

"He has often spoken of you."

"But all this does not help us now. If it were ever known that I--I was
the one, the other day,--I should be ruined."

"You may be sure that no one shall know."

"I am not so selfish as I seem. I don't forget that this story will
injure him--injure him terribly. They will think him a kind of Joseph
Surface--a hypocrite. People expect him to be different from everybody
else. A piece of gossip which they would have laughed at and taken as a
matter of course from poor Beauclerk or Charles Aumerle--they would
resent bitterly in Robert. The thing that grieves me, that torments me,
is the fear lest this act of mine may injure him."

"It won't injure him," said Brigit. "Have no fear at all. And if you
went to see him, as you say, you must have had the best of reasons for
doing so. You may rely, I am sure, on his keeping your name a secret.
You were kind to tell me--for he certainly would not have told
me--without your consent. We never see each other now, and we never
write to each other."

Her voice trembled for the first time.

"How does he look?" she asked, after a sharp struggle between her pride
and a desire to hear more.

"He looks ill and worn. He over-works."

"He will suffer at Lord Reckage's death."

"But he hides his feelings. He is always reticent."

"O, to see him and talk with him--that would be such a joy for me."

"You must be very sad, often," said Sara, coldly.

"Yes, often," answered Brigit. "And I was so happy during the short time
we were together that now it seems no part of my life--no part of it. I