riends!"

Then he halted, and stood looking down at her, and biting his beard,
which he was crushing up to his lips with one hand, after his fashion
when he was embarrassed or perplexed. Some glimmer of the truth had
begun to manifest itself to him. A hot, red flush crossed his brow.

"Rosalind," he said, in a softer but also a colder tone, "you must not
take this matter so much to heart. Rest assured that I--and my wife, if
she comes back, and my daughter also--will always look upon you as a
very dear and valued friend."

"I am so alone in the world," she said, wiping away her tears and
slightly lifting her head. "I cannot bear to think that the day will
come when I----"

She paused--perhaps purposely. But Caspar was resolved to treat the
subject more lightly now.

"When you are without friends? Oh, that will never be. You are too kind
and sympathetic to be without as many friends as you choose to have."

"And you--yourself----"

"Oh, I am of a very constant disposition," he said, cheerfully. "I
suppose it is for that reason that I want Alice back. You know that in
spite of all our disagreements, I have always held to it that I never
saw a woman half as charming, half as attractive, as Alice."

This was a speech not calculated to soothe Mrs. Romaine's wounded
feelings, or to implant in her a liking for Lady Alice. For Mrs. Romaine
was not very generous, and she was irritated by the thought that she had
betrayed her own secret. She rose to her feet at once, with a quick and
rather haughty gesture.

"You are indeed a model of constancy," she said. "Some men would resent
insults, even if offered to them by wives. You are capable, it seems, of
much forgetfulness and much forgiveness."

"Do you think that a fault?" asked Brooke, calmly. Her mood changed at
once. She burst into a shrill little laugh.

"Oh, not at all. Most convenient--for the wife. There is one danger--you
may incur the censure of more worldly men; but then you are too
high-minded to care for that!"

Caspar shrugged his broad shoulders.

"I think I can take care of myself," he said, good-humoredly. "And now I
must go. Pray don't distress yourself on my account. I will not do
anything rash."

They stood facing each other, she with her eyes down, he looking
straight into her face. Some instinct told her not to break the spell by
looking up. There was a conflict going on in Caspar Brooke's mind--a
conflict between pity (not love) and duty. He