way: you did all that you could to attract him; but you failed. He
had to tell you to be more careful, had he not?"

"How dare you! How dare you!" cried the girl, starting up with her face
aflame. "Never, never!" Then she threw herself down on the sofa and hid
her face. Some memory came over her that made her writhe with shame.
Hugo smiled to himself.

"Everybody saw what was going on," he continued. "Everybody pitied you.
People wondered at your friends for allowing you to manifest an
unrequited attachment in that shameless manner. They supposed that you
knew no better; but they wondered that Mrs. Heron and Elizabeth Murray
did not caution you. Perhaps they did. You were never very good at
taking a caution, were you, Kitty?"

The only answer was a moan. He had found the way to torture her now; and
he meant to use his power.

"Vivian was a good deal chaffed about it. He used to be a great flirt
when he was younger, but not so much of late years, you know. I'll
confess now, Kitty, I taxed him one day with his conduct to you. He said
he was sorry; he knew that you were head and ears in love with him----"

"It is false," said Kitty, lifting a very pale face from the cushions
amongst which she had laid it. "Mr. Vivian never said anything of the
kind. He is too much of a gentleman to say a thing like that."

"What do you know of the things that men say to each other when they are
alone?" said Hugo, confident in her ignorance of the world, and
professedly contemptuous. "He said what I have told you. And he said,
too, that marriage was out of the question for him, on account of an
unfortunate entanglement in his youth--a private marriage, or something
of the kind; his wife is separated from him, but she is living still. He
asked me to let you know this as soon and as gently as I could."

"Is it true?" she asked, in a low voice. Her face seemed to have grown
ten years older in the last ten minutes: it was perfectly colourless,
and the eyes had a dull, strained look, which was not softened even by
the bright drops that still hung on her long lashes.

"Perfectly true," said Hugo. "Perhaps this paper will bring you
conviction, if my word does not."

He handed her a small slip cut from a newspaper, which had the air of
having been in his possession for some time. Kitty took it and read:--

"On the 15th of October, at St. Botolph's Church, Manchester, Rupert,
eldest son of the late Gerald Vivian, Esq., of Vivian Court, Dev