iction that, like himself, Jack too had loved
the beautiful girl now lost forever to them both, while a chill ran
through his veins as he thought that possibly Jack was an accepted
lover, and that was why Bessie had shrunk from his words of love, as
something she must not listen to. She was engaged to Jack Trevellian;
nothing could be plainer, and with this conviction, which each moment
gathered strength in his mind, he resolved to conceal his own
heart-wound from his rival, and talk of the dead girl as if he had only
been her friend. Slowly, as Jack had bidden him, he told the story of
her sickness, dwelling long on Flossie Meredith's untiring devotion, but
saying nothing of the services he had rendered, saying only that he was
so glad he was there, as a gentleman friend was necessary at such a time
and in such a place, where greed is the rule and not the exception.

"They were expecting Neil from Naples the day I left, or I should have
staid," he said, and then into Jack's eyes there crept a strange, hard
expression, and he wiped the perspiration from his forehead and lips, as
he said:

"Neil; yes. It was his place, not yours, or mine, but, oh, Grey, if I
might have seen her; if I could have held her dead hand but for a moment
and kissed her dear face--"

Here Jack stopped, for his voice was choked with sobs, and ere he knew
what he was doing, Grey said to him:

"Jack, you loved Bessie McPherson!"

"Yes," Jack answered him, unhesitatingly. "I do not mind telling it to
you. I think I have loved her since I first saw her, a demure,
old-fashioned little thing, in the funniest bonnet and dress you ever
saw, sitting with her father, in Hyde Park, and looking at the
passers-by. I watched her for some time, wondering who she was, and
then, at last, I ventured to speak to her, and standing by her chair
told her who the people were, and found out who she was, and called upon
her in Abingdon Road, and then she went away, but her face haunted me
continually, and even the remembrance of it and of her helped me to a
better life than I had lead before. You knew her mother, or rather you
knew of her. Not the woman whom you saw in Rome, full of anxiety for her
child, but a vain, selfish, intriguing woman, whom no good man could
respect, much as he might admire her dazzling beauty. Well, she had me
on her string, when I met her daughter, but something Bessie said to me
made me strong to resist coils and arts which Satan himself w