gement?"

"I don't say she dislikes him! I don't say she likes him; I don't know
what it is they say to each other when they're shut up together alone."

"Shut up together alone?" Anna stared. Owen seemed like a man in
delirium; such an exhibition was degrading to them all. But he pushed on
without seeing her look.

"Yes--the first evening she came, in the study; the next morning, early,
in the park; yesterday, again, in the spring-house, when you were at the
lodge with the doctor...I don't know what they say to each other, but
they've taken every chance they could to say it...and to say it when
they thought that no one saw them."

Anna longed to silence him, but no words came to her. It was as though
all her confused apprehensions had suddenly taken definite shape. There
was "something"--yes, there was "something"...Darrow's reticences and
evasions had been more than a figment of her doubts.

The next instant brought a recoil of pride. She turned indignantly on
her step-son.

"I don't half understand what you've been saying; but what you seem to
hint is so preposterous, and so insulting both to Sophy and to me, that
I see no reason why we should listen to you any longer."

Though her tone steadied Owen, she perceived at once that it would not
deflect him from his purpose. He spoke less vehemently, but with all the
more precision.

"How can it be preposterous, since it's true? Or insulting, since I
don't know, any more than YOU, the meaning of what I've been seeing?
If you'll be patient with me I'll try to put it quietly. What I mean is
that Sophy has completely changed since she met Darrow here, and that,
having noticed the change, I'm hardly to blame for having tried to find
out its cause."

Anna made an effort to answer him with the same composure. "You're to
blame, at any rate, for so recklessly assuming that you HAVE found it
out. You seem to forget that, till they met here, Sophy and Mr. Darrow
hardly knew each other."

"If so, it's all the stranger that they've been so often closeted
together!"

"Owen, Owen--" the girl sighed out.

He turned his haggard face to her. "Can I help it, if I've seen and
known what I wasn't meant to? For God's sake give me a reason--any
reason I can decently make out with! Is it my fault if, the day after
you arrived, when I came back late through the garden, the curtains of
the study hadn't been drawn, and I saw you there alone with Darrow?"

Anna laughed impatiently.