ody, somewhere, who had a piece of his
heart?"

"No, ma'am,--never!" Eleanor said with some energy. "I never thought he
seemed like it."

"I did not know anything about it," Mrs. Caxton went on slowly, "until
a little while before he went away--some time after you were here. Then
I learned that it was the truth."

Eleanor worked away very diligently and made no answer. Mrs. Caxton
furtively watched her; Eleanor's head was bent down over her sewing;
but when she raised it to change the position of her work, Mrs. Caxton
saw a set of her lips that was not natural.

"You never suspected anything of the kind?" she repeated.

"No, ma'am--and it would take strong testimony to make me believe it."

"Why so, pray?"

"I should have thought--but it is no matter what I thought about it!"

"Nay, if I ask you, it is matter. Why should it be hard to believe, of
Mr. Rhys especially?"

"Nothing; only--I should have thought, if he liked any one, a
woman,--that she would have gone with him."

"You forget where he was bound to go. Do you think many women would
have chosen to go with him to such a home--perhaps for the remainder of
their lives? I think many would have hesitated."

"But _you_ forget for what he was going; and any woman whom he would
have liked, would have liked his object too."

"You think so," said Mrs. Caxton; "but I cannot wonder at his having
doubted. There are a great many questions about going such a journey,
my dear."

"And did the lady refuse to go?" said Eleanor bending over her work and
speaking huskily.

"I do not think he ever asked her. I almost wish he had."

"_Almost_, aunt Caxton? Why he may have done her the greatest wrong.
She might like him without his knowing it; it was not fair to go
without giving her the chance of saying what she would do."

"Well, he is gone," said Mrs. Caxton; "and he went alone. I think men
make mistakes sometimes."

Eleanor sewed on nervously, with a more desperate haste than she knew,
or than was in the least called for by the work in hand. Mrs. Caxton
watched her, and turned away to the contemplation of the fire.

"Did the thought ever occur to you, Eleanor," she went on very gravely,
"that he fancied _you?_"

Eleanor's glance up was even pitiful in its startled appeal.

"No, ma'am, of course not!" she said hastily. "Except--O aunt Caxton,
why do you ask me such a thing!"

"_Except_,--my dear?"

"Except a foolish fancy of an hour," said Eleanor in ove