ngs when her marriage had put him out of her
power. But to let her discover his ill-treatment now might upset the
impending union of the families, and wring her own heart with the sight
of Somerset married in her brother's place.

Why Dare, or any other person, should have set himself to advance her
brother's cause by such unscrupulous blackening of Somerset's character
was more than her sagacity could fathom. Her brother was, as far as she
could see, the only man who could directly profit by the machination,
and was therefore the natural one to suspect of having set it going. But
she would not be so disloyal as to entertain the thought long; and who
or what had instigated Dare, who was undoubtedly the proximate cause of
the mischief, remained to her an inscrutable mystery.

The contention of interests and desires with honour in her heart shook
Charlotte all that night; but good principle prevailed. The wedding
was to be solemnized the very next morning, though for before-mentioned
reasons this was hardly known outside the two houses interested; and
there were no visible preparations either at villa or castle. De Stancy
and his groomsman--a brother officer--slept at the former residence.

De Stancy was a sorry specimen of a bridegroom when he met his sister
in the morning. Thick-coming fancies, for which there was more than good
reason, had disturbed him only too successfully, and he was as full of
apprehension as one who has a league with Mephistopheles. Charlotte told
him nothing of what made her likewise so wan and anxious, but drove
off to the castle, as had been planned, about nine o'clock, leaving her
brother and his friend at the breakfast-table.

That clearing Somerset's reputation from the stain which had been thrown
on it would cause a sufficient reaction in Paula's mind to dislocate
present arrangements she did not so seriously anticipate, now that
morning had a little calmed her. Since the rupture with her former
architect Paula had sedulously kept her own counsel, but Charlotte
assumed from the ease with which she seemed to do it that her feelings
towards him had never been inconveniently warm; and she hoped that Paula
would learn of Somerset's purity with merely the generous pleasure of a
friend, coupled with a friend's indignation against his traducer.

Still, the possibility existed of stronger emotions, and it was only too
evident to poor Charlotte that, knowing this, she had still less excuse
for d