ed Malcolm? O Myry, as if
I should have kept it from you if I had. Like him? Yes, always as the
dearest, best fellow I ever met. I didn't mean it, dear. I never was
sick of him; but he used to make me angry, because I felt that he almost
worshipped you, and was making me a stepping-stone to get nearer. Well,
why don't you ask me why I did not speak?"

There was no reply, and Edie went on as if she had been answered.

"Of course I could not say a word. One day I felt sure that he loved
you, and would confide in me; the next time we met he was so quiet and
strange that I told myself it was all fancy, and that I should be a
silly, match-making creature if I said a word. Besides, how could I?
What would uncle, who has been so good to me, have thought if I had
seemed to encourage it? And you, all the time, like a horrid, cold,
marble statue at an exhibition, with no more heart or care, or else you
would have seen."

Edie relieved her feelings by unlacing her fingers, taking out her
handkerchief from her pocket and beginning to tear it.

"And now," she went on, "you tell me you believed that he cared for me,
and suggest that but for this idea things might have been different.
But they would not have been. You are a hard, cold, heartless creature,
Myra. He was too poor for you, and not likely to buy you diamonds and
pearls like Mr Barron does. Promise me pearls, would he! Insulting me
as he did this morning! Why, I would rather have Malcolm Stratton
without a penny than Mr Barron with all the West Indies and East
Indies, too, for a portion. Malcolm is worth a hundred millions of him,
and I hope you are happy now, for I shouldn't wonder if you've broken
the poor fellow's heart."

Myra could bear no more, and turning sharply toward her cousin she
stretched out her hands imploringly, as her pale face, with its wild
looking, dilated eyes seemed to ask for help. But the look was not
seen, for, bursting into a fit of weeping, Edie cried:

"But it's too late now! I hope you'll be happy, dear, and uncle
satisfied; but you will repent it, I am sure, for I don't believe you
love Mr Barron the slightest bit."

As she spoke those last words she left the room, and Myra was alone with
thoughts which grew and swelled till she felt half suffocated, while,
like some vibrating, echoing stroke of a distant knell, came the
repetition of those two words, quivering through every nerve and fibre
of her being:

"Too late--t