nswered. "But I am very, very tired."

And then she rose and made her way back to the loch-side, where Mr. and
Mrs. Heron were still reposing. But her steps lagged, and her face did
not recover its usual colour as she went home, for, as she had said, she
was tired--strangely and unnaturally tired--and it was with a feeling of
relief that she locked herself into her own room at Strathleckie, and
gave way to the gathering tears which she had hitherto striven to
restrain. She would willingly have stayed away from the dinner-table,
but she was afraid of exciting remark. Her pale face and heavy eyelids
excited remark as much as her absence would have done; but she did not
think of that. Mr. Stretton, who usually dined with them, sent an excuse
to Mrs. Heron. He had a headache, and preferred to remain in his own
room.

"It must have been the sun," said Mrs. Heron. "Elizabeth has a headache,
too. Have you a headache, Kitty?"

"Not at all, thank you," said Kitty.

There was something peculiar in her tone, thought Elizabeth. Or was it
only that her conscience was guilty, and that she was becoming apt to
suspect hidden meanings in words and tones that used to be harmless and
innocent enough? The idea was a degrading one to her mind. She hated the
notion of having anything to conceal--anything, at least, beyond what
was lawful and right. Her inheritance, her engagement to Percival, had
been to some extent kept secret; but not, as she now said passionately
to herself, not because she was ashamed of them. Now, indeed, she was
ashamed of her secret, and there was nothing on earth from which she
shrank so much as the thought of its being discovered.

She went to bed early, but she could not sleep. The words that Brian had
said to her, the answers that she had made to him, were rehearsed one
after the other, turned over in her mind, commented on, and repeated
again and again all through the night. She hardly knew the meaning of
her own excitement of feeling, nor of the intense desire that possessed
her to see him again and listen once more to his voice. She only knew
that her brain was in a turmoil and that her heart seemed to be on fire.
Sleep! She could not think of sleep. His face was before her, his voice
was sounding in her ears, until the cock crew and the morning sunlight
flooded all the room. And then for a little while, indeed, she slept,
and dreamt of him.

She awoke late and unrefreshed. She dressed leisurely, wonderin