counteracting the pathos of her tones. And at the words she put up her
lips with a childlike air to her companion. Elizabeth's arms folded
impulsively about her, and held her for a moment in an embrace that
seemed at once to guard, and caress, and brood over her. Then she drew
away, and sat beside her with a quietness that seemed like a wish to
make her sudden evidence of strong feeling forgotten.

"Betsey, my dear," said Katie softly, "you're so good. I have seemed
different to you sometimes. You must not expect me to be like you."

"I should not have done half so well," said Elizabeth hastily.

Katie smiled. After this they sat and talked some time longer; it was
the first free interview that they had had since their estrangement was
over, and Elizabeth's voice had a happy ring in it. After a time, Katie
began to give an account of some gathering at which she had been
present. At the sound of Lord Bulchester's name, among the guests,
Elizabeth's attention wandered. She began to think of the young's man's
strange reticence respecting Edmonson, and evident uneasiness about
something connected with him. Why were they not friends still? Was it on
account of this unknown something? All at once the light of conviction
flashed over her face. She perceived at least one cause of the
separation. Bulchester's attentions to Katie were distasteful to
Edmonson, for he wanted Katie to marry Stephen Archdale, because he
feared lest Elizabeth should grow fond of him, lest Stephen should come
to find a fortune convenient. Elizabeth's unaided perceptions would
never have reached this point; but in Edmonson's anger at her second
refusal of him he had dared to intimate such a thing, so darkly, to be
sure, that she had not seen fit to understand him, but plainly enough to
throw light upon the estrangement of the two men. "Distasteful," was a
light word to use in speaking of anything that Edmonson did not like;
his feelings were so strong that he seemed always ready to be
vindictive. Her feeling toward him for this intimation had been anger
which had cooled into contempt of a nature like his, ready to find
baseness everywhere. The suggestion was no reproach to her, for she had
had no thoughts of disloyalty to Katie. As she sat there still seeming
to listen, suddenly, it seemed to her, for she could not trace its
coming, a picture rose before her with the vividness of reality. She saw
Archdale and Edmonson standing together on the deck of