ose, to Miss Keys?"

"I wish you would not."

"I won't promise, Miss Aylmer. I am very uncomfortable regarding the
position you are in. It is hateful to me to feel that you should come
here like a thief in the night, and stay for hours at the railway
station. What mystery is there between you and Miss Keys?"

Florence was silent.

"You admit that there is a mystery?"

"I admit that there is a secret between us, which I am not going to tell
you."

He reddened slightly; then he looked at her. She was holding her head
well back; her figure was very upright; there was a proud indignation
about her. His heart ached as he watched her.

"I think of you often," he said; "your strange and inexplicable story is
a great weight and trouble on my mind."

"I wish you would not think of me: I wish you would forget me."

Florence looked full at him; her angry dark eyes were full of misery.

"Suppose that is impossible?" he said, dropping his voice, and there was
something in his tone which made her heart give a sudden bound of
absolute gladness. But what right had she to be glad? She hated herself
for the sensation.

Trevor came closer to her side.

"I have very nearly made up my mind," he said; "when it is quite made up
I shall come to see you in town. This is your train." He opened the door
of a first-class carriage.

"I am going third," said Florence.

Without comment he walked down a few steps of the platform with her. An
empty third-class carriage was found; she seated herself in it.

"Good-bye," he said. He took off his hat and watched the train out of
the station; then he returned slowly--very slowly--to Aylmer's Court. He
could not quite account for his own sensations. He had meant to go to
meet Kitty and her father, who were both going to walk back by the
river, but he did not care to see either of them just now.

He was puzzled and very angry with Bertha Keys, more than angry with
Mrs. Aylmer, and he had a sore sense of unrest and misery with regard to
Florence.

"What can she want with Miss Keys? What can be the secret between them?"
he said to himself over and over again. He was far from suspecting the
truth.

Bertha returned from her drive in apparently excellent spirits. She
entered the hall, to find Trevor standing there alone.

"Why are you back so early?" she said.

He did not speak at all for a moment; then he came closer to her. Before
he could utter a word she sprang to a centre table, and