"You musn't blame her," continued Tom; "I can't stand that! Pitch into
me as often and as hard as you like, you never can say enough, but don't
blame her."

"Let us leave her share in the matter, then, out of the question,"
continued Elizabeth. "If you believe what you say, is it wise to run
into danger as you do?"

"There's no help for it, Bessie; I should die if I could not see her
dear little face! Oh, you can't think what I suffered while I was
gone--I didn't talk about it--I don't even want to think of it; but,
Bessie, dear, sometimes I used to think I should go out of my senses."

He was speaking seriously now; his face was absolutely pale with
emotion, and his eyes--the one fine feature of his face--were misty with
a remembrance of old pain.

"Poor Tom," murmured Elizabeth, in her pitying way, always full of
sympathy for the trouble of others, whatever her own might be; "poor,
dear Tom, I know how hard it is."

"No; you can't know, Bessie; you can't have the least idea! You don't
know what it is to have something to hide--to go about with a secret
gnawing at your heart--never able to open your lips--suffering night and
day--"

He stopped suddenly and looked at his cousin with wonder; she was
leaning back in her chair, her face was pale as death, and her lips
parted in a dreary sigh.

Tom drew close to her chair and bent over her, with a look of anxious
surprise on his disturbed features.

"Are you sick, Bessie?" he asked.

"No, no," she answered, controlling herself.

His words brought up her own secret burden so vividly before her that
for an instant she had been dreadfully shaken.

"You look so pale; I'm afraid you are going to be ill."

"Indeed, I am not," she answered.

Tom knelt down by her on both knees, played with her embroidery silks,
and finally said:

"Bessie, since we're talking plainly, may I say something?"

"Yes, Tom."

"Somehow, since I came back from Europe, you don't seem so happy as you
used--maybe it's only one of my blunders--but I have thought you looked
troubled--like a person that was always expecting something dreadful to
happen."

She forced a smile upon her lips and then compelled them to answer him:

"Oh, you foolish Tom!"

"Then it is not so!" he urged. "You are not unhappy?"

"How could I be unhappy--is not my life pleasant, prosperous beyond
anything I could ever have hoped for?"

"It seems so; that made me think it must be just one of my silly
fancies.