at will rankle, and which he will
not endeavour to define. He is the noblest man on earth, and the most
generous--till he be offended. But then he is the most bitter."

"You describe his character just as I have read it."

"If it be so you must be careful that he learn this from yourself,
and not from others. If it come from you he will be angry, that it
has come so late. But his anger will pass by and he will forgive you.
But if he hears it from the world at large, if it be told of you,
and not by you, then I can understand, that his wrath should be very
great."

"Why has he not heard it already?" asked Mrs. Western after a pause.
"Why has he not been like all the world who have read it in the
newspapers? It was talked of so much, that it was hardly necessary
that I should tell it myself."

"You yourself have said that he does not think of trifles. Paragraphs
about the loves and marriages of other people he would never read.
You may be sure at any rate of this,--that your engagement with Sir
Francis Geraldine he has never read."

"I have sometimes hoped," said Mrs. Western, "that he knew it all."
Lady Grant shook her head. "I have sometimes thought that he knew
it all, and regarded it as a matter on which nothing need be said
between us. Should I have been angry with him had he not told me of
Miss Tremenhere?"

"Do you measure the one thing by the other," said Lady Grant; "a
man's desires by a woman's, a man's sense of honour by what a woman
is supposed to feel? Though a man keep such secrets deep in his bosom
through long years of married life, the woman is not supposed to be
injured. She may know, or may not know, and may hear the tale at
any period of her married life, and no harm will follow. But a man
expects to see every thought in the breast of the woman to whose love
be trusts, as though it were all written there for him in the clear
light, but written in letters which no one else shall read."

"I have nothing that he may not read," said Mrs. Western.

"But there is something that he has not read, something that he has
not been invited to read. Let it not remain so. Tell it to him all
even though you may have to support his anger, and for a time to pine
in the shadow of his displeasure."

Mrs. Western as she went away to her own room felt some relief at any
rate in the conviction that with Lady Grant her secret would be safe.
Strong as was the bond which bound her to her brother, there would be
on h