to whom she was required to send an answer--with whom John Eames
corresponded in the most affectionate terms? She had resolved not
even to ask herself a question about M. D., and yet she could not
divert her mind from the inquiry. It was, at any rate, a fact that
there must be some woman designated by the letters,--some woman who
had, at any rate, chosen to call herself M. D. And John Eames had
called her M. There must, at any rate, be such a woman. This female,
be she who she might, had thought it worth her while to make this
inquiry about John Eames, and had manifestly learned something
of Lily's own history. And the woman had pledged herself not to
interfere with John Eames, if L. D. would only condescend to say that
she was engaged to him! As Lily thought of the proposition, she trod
upon the letter for the third time. Then she picked it up, and having
no place of custody under lock and key ready to her hand she put it
in her pocket.

At night, before she went to bed, she showed the letter to Emily
Dunstable. "Is it not surprising that any woman could bring herself
to write such a letter?" said Lily.

But Miss Dunstable hardly saw it in the same light. "If anybody were
to write me such a letter about Bernard," said she, "I should show to
him as a good joke."

"That would be very different. You and Bernard, of course, understand
each other."

"And so will you and Mr. Eames--some day, I hope."

"Never more than we do now, dear. The thing that annoys me is that
such a woman as that should have even heard my name at all."

"As long as people have got ears and tongues, people will hear other
people's names."

Lily paused a moment, and then spoke again, asking another question.
"I suppose this woman does know him? She must know him, because he
has written to her."

"She knows something about him, no doubt, and has some reason for
wishing that you should quarrel with him. If I were you, I should
take care not to gratify her. As for Mr. Eames's note, it is a joke."

"It is nothing to me," said Lily.

"I suppose," continued Emily, "that most gentlemen become acquainted
with some people that they would not wish all their friends to know
that they knew. They go about so much more than we do, and meet
people of all sorts."

"No gentleman should become intimately acquainted with a woman who
could write such a letter as that," said Lily. And as she spoke she
remembered a certain episode to John Eames's early life,