ter began to feel, with something of baffled
rage, that their power over her was growing less.

"Why do you never consent to see my brother?" asked Adelaide one day,
when Allan had complained most bitterly to her.

"Because I have such great respect for my guardians," she answered. "I
cannot bear anything clandestine or underhand beneath their roof."

A reply that, strange to say, silenced Miss Lyster. Brother and sister
held a council of war, and it was decided that all deference must be
paid to her humor.

"Content yourself, brother, with reminding her of her promise to marry
you when she comes of age, but do no more. Do not seek an interview with
her; let her imagine herself quite free."

But the finishing stroke was given one day during lunch, when the
conversation turned upon the elopement of a young lady in the
neighborhood. Lady Ridsdale expressed great fears for her future.

"He is not a gentleman," she said. "No true gentleman would ever try to
persuade any girl to a clandestine engagement."

She saw Marion open her eyes and look at her in amazement.

"I am quite right, my dear," she said. "You may depend upon it, a man
who would persuade any girl to engage herself to him unknown to her
friends is not only no gentleman, but he is not even an honest man."

Marion Arleigh's beautiful face flushed, then grew deadly pale; almost
involuntarily she looked at Allan, but he did not raise his eyes to meet
hers.

Those words were the death-blow to her love, or what she called her
love--"Not even an honest man." This hero of her romance, this artist
whom she was to ennoble by her love, was not even an honest man. She
shuddered and grew faint at the thought.

Again she was present when Lady Ridsdale was talking of the Lysters to
her husband. She praised Allan's artistic qualities, she admired his
talents, but she owned frankly that she did not like him, that she did
not think him true.

Marion Arleigh was very much struck with this remark. Then she began to
think over all she knew of the Lysters. She saw all in the clear light
of reason, not in the glamor of love, and her judgment condemned them
both. The sister had been false to her trust; she had betrayed the youth
and innocence of the pupil entrusted to her, and he--she summed up the
evil he had done her in these few words--he was not true.

She decided upon what to do. She would never be false to them; all her
life long she would do her best to advance A