r hands, and for a moment or two did not
speak. "It is too terrible," she said at last, not very steadily. "I do
not know how to believe it. I always trusted her. Is there nobody worth
trusting in the world? Is there no truth and faith anywhere at all?"

The tears were raining down her cheeks as she spoke. Maurice looked at
her with wistful tenderness.

"Can you ask that question when you have _such_ a father?" he asked.
"And I--have I done anything to deserve your want of trust?"

She could only sob out incoherent words by way of answer. "Not you--not
my father--I was thinking--of others--others I have trusted and been
deceived in."

"Oliver Trent," he said--not as a question so much as by way of sad
assertion. She drew her handkerchief away from her eyes immediately, and
gazed at him through her tears, with flushed cheeks and panting breath.
What did he mean? He did not leave her long in doubt.

"Kingston--Mrs. Trent--has told a strange story," he said. "She avers
that Oliver was false--false to my poor little sister who believed in
him so entirely--false to himself and false to us. They say you knew of
this. She says that he--he made love to you, that he asked you to marry
him--to run away with him indeed--so late as last Saturday. She had
hidden herself between the folding-doors in order to hear what went on.
Lesley, is this true?"

She was white enough now. She cast one appealing glance at his face, and
then said, almost inaudibly--

"Don't tell Ethel."

"Then it was true?"

"Quite true!"

"Oh, my God!" cried Maurice, involuntarily. He did not use the words
with any profane intention: they escaped his lips as a sort of cry of
agony, of protest, almost of entreaty. He had hoped until this moment
that Lesley would be able to deny this charge. When she acknowledged its
truth, the conviction of Oliver's falsity, the suspicion of Lesley's
faith, smote him like a blow. He drew back from her a little and looked
at her steadfastly. Lesley raised her candid, innocent eyes to his, and,
after a moment's silence, made her defence.

"I could not help it. If Kingston speaks the truth, she will tell you
that. He locked the door so that I could not get out, and then ... I
said I would never speak to him again. I was never so angry--so
ashamed--in all my life. You must not think that I--I too--was false to
Ethel. She is my friend, and I never dreamed of taking him away from
her. I never cared--in that way--for him, an