which had
reached her from a source which she had not doubted, and which had
given her pain and offended her. She had believed that John Eames had
in that case behaved very cruelly to a young woman, and had thought
that her offence had come simply from that feeling. "But of course it
is nothing to me," she said. "Mr. Eames can choose his friends as he
likes. I only wish that my name might not be mentioned to them."

"It is not from him that she has heard it."

"Perhaps not. As I said before, of course it does not signify; only
there is something very disagreeable in the whole thing. The idea
is so hateful! Of course this woman means me to understand that she
considers herself to have a claim upon Mr. Eames, and that I stand in
her way."

"And why should you stand in her way?"

"I will stand in nobody's way. Mr. Eames has a right to give his hand
to any one that he pleases. I, at any rate, can have no cause of
offence against him. The only thing is that I do wish that my name
could be left alone." Lily, when she was in her own room again, did
destroy the letter; but before she did so she read it again, and it
became so indelibly impressed on her memory that she could not forget
even the words of it. The lady who wrote had pledged herself, under
certain conditions, "not to interfere with Miss L. D." "Interfere
with me!" Lily said to herself; "nobody can interfere with me; nobody
has power to do so." As she turned it over in her mind, her heart
became hard against John Eames. No woman would have troubled herself
to write such a letter without some cause for the writing. That the
writer was vulgar, false, and unfeminine, Lily thought that she could
perceive from the letter itself; but no doubt the woman knew John
Eames, had some interest in the question of his marriage, and was
entitled to some answer to her question--only was not entitled to
such answer from Lily Dale.

For some weeks past now, up to the hour at which the anonymous letter
had reached her hands, Lily's heart had been growing soft and still
softer towards John Eames; and now again it had become hardened.
I think that the appearance of Adolphus Crosbie in the Park, that
momentary vision of the real man by which the divinity of the
imaginary Apollo had been dashed to the ground, had done a service to
the cause of the other lover; of the lover who had never been a god,
but who of late years had at any rate grown into the full dimensions
of a man. Unfort