present ordinary greeting
showed--"Caroline, I have come down to have some talk with you. There
is that between us which should be settled."

"Well, what is it?" she said, with the slightest possible smile.

"I will not, if I can help it, say any word to show that I am
angry--"

"But are you angry, George? If so, had you not better show it?
Concealment will never sit well on you."

"I hope not; nor will I conceal anything willingly. It is because I
so greatly dislike concealment that I am here."

"You could not conceal anything if you tried, George. It is useless
for you to say that you will not show that you are angry. You are
angry, and you do show it. What is it? I hope my present sin is
not a very grievous one. By your banishing poor aunt out of the
drawing-room, I fear it must be rather bad."

"I was dining with Mr. Harcourt last night, and it escaped him in
conversation that you had shown to him the letter which I wrote to
you from Paris. Was it so, Caroline? Did you show him that very
letter?"

Certainly, no indifferent listener would have said that there was any
tone of anger in Bertram's voice; and yet there was that in it which
made Miss Waddington feel that the room was swimming round and round
her. She turned ruby red up to her hair. Bertram had never before
seen her blush like that; for he had never before seen her covered by
shame. Oh! how she had repented showing that letter! How her soul had
grieved over it from the very moment that it had passed out of her
hand! She had done so in the hotness of her passion. He had written
to her sharp stinging words which had maddened her. Up to that moment
she had never known how sharp, how stinging, how bitter words might
be. The world had hitherto been so soft to her! She was there told
that she was unfeminine, unladylike! And then, he that was sitting by
her was so smooth, so sympathizing, so anxious to please her! In her
anger and her sympathy she had shown it; and from that day to this
she had repented in the roughness of sackcloth and the bitterness of
ashes. It was possible that Caroline Waddington should so sin against
a woman's sense of propriety; that, alas! had been proved; but it was
impossible that she should so sin and not know that she had sinned,
not feel the shame of it.

She did stand before him red with shame; but at the first moment she
made no answer. It was in her heart to kneel at his feet, to kneel in
the spirit if not in the body, a