I am convinced. Wasn't it dreadful, Vera?"

"Yes, very likely, Eustace," answered Vera, at random. She has not heard
one single word he has said.

Eustace Daintree looks round at her sharply. He sees that she is very
white, and that there are tears upon her cheeks.

"Why, Vera!" he cries, standing still, you have not listened to a word
I have been saying. "What is the matter, child? Why are you crying?"

They are in the vicarage garden now; among the beds of scarlet geraniums,
and the tall hollyhocks, and the glaring red gladioli; a whole bank of
greenery, rhododendrons and lauristinas, conceals them from the windows
of the house; a garden bench sheltered beneath a nook of the laurel
bushes is close by.

With a sudden gesture of utter misery Vera sinks down upon it, and bursts
into a passion of tears.

"My dear child; my poor Vera! What is it? What has happened? What can be
the reason of this?"

Mr. Daintree is infinitely distressed and puzzled; he bends over her,
taking her hand between his own. There is something in this wild outburst
of grief, from one habitually so calm and self-contained as Vera, that is
an absolute shock to him. He had learnt to love her very dearly; he had
thought he had understood all the workings of her candid maiden soul; he
had fancied that the story of her broken engagement was no secret to him,
that it was but the struggle of a conscientious nature after what was
true and honest. It had seemed to him that there had been no mystery in
her conduct, for he could appreciate all her motives. And surely, as she
had done right, she must be now at peace. He had told himself that the
pure instincts of a naturally stainless soul had triumphed in Vera over
the carelessness and worldliness of her early training; and lo, here was
the passionate weeping of a tempest-tossed woman, whose agony he could
not fathom, and whose sorrows he knew not how to divine.

"Vera, will you not tell me?" he asked her, in his distress. "Will you
not make a friend of me? My dear, forget that I am a clergyman; remember
only that I am your brother, and that I shall know how to feel for
you--for you, my dear sister."

But she could not tell him. There are some troubles that must be kept for
ever buried within our own souls; to speak of some things is only to make
them worse. Only she choked back her sobs, and lifted her face, white
and tear-stained; there was a look of hunted despair in her eyes, that
bewildered, an