ne who is beautiful; and, as you have told me, he
never, as far as you know, flirted with a girl. Well, that proves he
likes women best."

"Ah! but you can't do it, Jeannie," broke in Lady Nottingham. "Think of
what you will appear to Daisy; think of your own self-respect; think of
Victor. What will he make of it all? It is too dangerous."

"I have thought of all those things," said Jeannie. "I have weighed and
balanced them; and they seem to me lighter than that promise I made to
Diana. I may have to tell Victor; about that I don't know, but I shall
do my utmost not to. It may not be necessary, for, Alice, I think he
trusts me as utterly as I trust him. I think that if I saw him running
after some other woman I should feel there must be some explanation,
and I hope I should not ask him for it, or think he was faithless to me.
And I believe he has that trust in me also. I don't know. If he demands
to know what it all means I shall tell him, because if you are asked
anything in the name of love it is not possible to refuse. Heaven knows,
this is a desperate measure! But show me any other that has a chance of
success and will still keep Diana's secret. This may fail; one cannot be
sure of any plan going right. But show me any other plan at all, and
from the bottom of my heart I will thank you."

Lady Nottingham shook her head.

"I can think of no other plan," she said; "but I can't approve of this
one. You are playing with serious things, Jeannie; you are playing with
love and other people's souls. Diana did not mean you to do anything
like this in order to keep your promise to her."

"No, poor child! One does not easily see the consequences of one's acts,
or how they go on long after they are committed, bringing joy or sorrow
to others. Oh, Alice, there is such a dreadful vitality about evil. Acts
that one thinks are all over and dead have an awful power of coming to
life again. What one has done never dies. It may be forgiven--Heaven
grant it may be forgiven--but it exists still in the lives of others."

"But it is not as if she were alive," said the other, "or as if she
could suffer for it."

Jeannie shook her head.

"Ah, my dear," she said, "to my mind that is a reason the more for
keeping my promise. Living people can defend themselves to some extent,
or you can appeal to them and make them see, perhaps, that such a
promise involves more than it is reasonable to demand. But the dead,
Alice! The dead are so d