k to my sister. I do not doubt for a
moment that she will offer to accompany me. I shall not come back
until I bring Crystal with me." And Fern quite believed him. There
were restless sleepers that night in Belgrave House. Raby was
revolving his plans and wondering what Margaret would say; and on the
other side of the wall Erle tossed, wakeful and wretched, knowing that
his fate was sealed, and that Evelyn Selby and not Fern Trafford was
to be his future wife. And now, as he lay in the darkness, he told
himself that in spite of her goodness and beauty he could never love
her as he loved Fern. He knew it at the moment he asked her to marry
him, and when she put her hand in his and told him frankly that he had
long won her heart.

"You are too much a gentleman to treat a woman badly," Mr. Huntingdon
had said to him, well knowing the softness and generosity of Erle's
nature; and yet, was he not treating Fern badly?

He had thought over it all until his head was dizzy; but his
conscience had told him that his sin against Fern had been light in
comparison with that against Evelyn. What were those few evenings in
Beulah Place compared to the hours he had passed in Evelyn's society?

He had been in Lady Maltravers's train for months; he had suffered her
to treat him as a son of the house. He had ridden with Evelyn in the
Row; she had been his favorite partner in the ball-room. When they had
gone to the opera Erle had been their escort. It was perfectly true,
as Mr. Huntingdon said, that she had a right to expect an offer from
him; their names had long been coupled together, and Erle's weakness
and love of pretty faces had drawn the net round him. And there were
other considerations that had moved him--his dread of poverty; the
luxurious habits that had become a second nature; and above all,
reluctance to disappoint the old man who, in his own way, had been
good to him. Erle knew that in spite of his hardness and severity, his
uncle clung to him as the Benjamin of his old age.

No, he could not help himself, he thought bitterly. And yet how dreary
the prospect seemed. He had given up the first young love of his life,
and now the barren splendors of Belgrave House seemed to oppress
him--the walls closed round him like the walls of a prison.

And yet other men would envy him, and wonder at his luck. Evelyn had
many admirers--many a one nobly born and nobly gifted would grudge him
his prize; though he knew, and hated himself