future. He does not visit here, of course?"

"He has been here."

"You surely don't correspond?"

"We have corresponded."

"Good heavens! it is worse than I thought. But you will promise me not
to continue the acquaintance?"

"No, I cannot promise that!"

"Not after all I have told you of him?"

"You have told me nothing to Mr. Walcott's discredit. I have answered
your questions because you are, as you reminded me, my brother. Does it
not strike you that you have rather exceeded your privilege?"

Sydney was amazed at her quiet indifference.

"I really cannot understand you, Lettice. Do you mean to say that you
will maintain your friendship with this man, although you know him to be
a----"

"Well?"

"At any rate, a _possible_ murderer?"

"The important point," said Lettice coldly, "seems to be what Mr.
Walcott is actually, not what he is possibly. Your 'possible' is a
matter of opinion, and I am very distinctly of opinion that Mr. Walcott
is an innocent and honorable man."

"If you believe him innocent, then you believe that his wife is living?"

"I know nothing about his wife. That is a question which does not
concern me."

"Your obstinacy passes my comprehension." When Sydney said this, he rose
from the chair in which he had been sitting and stood on the hearth-rug
before the grate, with his hands behind him and his handsome brows
knitted in a very unmistakable frown. It was in a lower and more
regretful voice that he continued, after a few minutes' silence: "I must
say that the independent line you have been taking for some time past is
not very pleasing to me. You seem to have a perfect indifference to our
name and standing in the world. You like to fly in the face of
convention, to----"

"Oh, Sydney, why should we quarrel?" said Lettice, sadly. Hitherto she
had been standing by the window, but she now came up to him and looked
entreatingly into his face. "Indeed, I will do all that I can to satisfy
you. I am not careless about your prospects and standing in the world;
indeed, I am not. But they could not be injured by the fact that I am
earning my own living as an author. I am sure they could not!"

"You say that you will do all you can to satisfy me," said Sydney, who
was not much mollified by her tenderness. "Will you give up the
acquaintance of that man?"

"I am not certain that I shall ever see Mr. Walcott again; but if you
ask me whether I will promise to insult him if I do see him, or