by
the rapidity of the motion.

More and more he regretted not having been able to grant the favor
Jane-Ellen had so engagingly asked, more and more he felt inclined to
believe that in Brindlebury's place he would have done the same thing,
more and more did he feel disposed to fasten upon Tucker all the
disagreeableness of the situation.

VII

HE did not get back until almost dinner time. The meal was not an
agreeable one, though Jane-Ellen's part of the performance was no less
perfectly achieved than usual. It was evident that there had been a
scene between the two ladies. Cora's eyes were distinctly red, and
though Mrs. Falkener's bore no such evidence, she looked more haggard
than was her wont. Tucker was still feeling somewhat imposed upon,
Smithfield's manner suggested a dignified rebuke, Crane felt no
inclination to lighten the general tone, and altogether the occasion was
dreary in the extreme.

As soon as they had had coffee, Cora sat down at the piano, and drawing
Burton to her by a request for more light, she whispered:

"Won't you take me out in the garden? I have something I must say to
you."

Crane acquiesced. It was a splendid, misty November night. The moonlight
was of that sea-green color which, so often represented on the stage, is
seldom seen in nature. The moon concealed the bareness of the
garden-beds, lent a suggestion of mystery to the thickets of what had
once been flowering shrubs, and made the columns of the piazza, which in
the daytime showed themselves most plainly to be but ill-painted wood,
appear almost like the marble portico of an Ionic temple.

The air was so still that from the stables, almost a quarter of a mile
away, they could hear the sound of one of the horses kicking in its
stall, and the tune that a groom was rather unskilfully deducing from a
concertina.

Crane whistled the air softly as he strolled along by his companion's
side, until she stopped and said with great intensity:

"I want to say something to you, Burton. I'm not happy. I'm horribly
distressed. I ought not to say what I'm going to say, at least the
general idea seems to be that girls shouldn't--but I have a feeling that
you're really my friend, a friend to whom I can speak frankly even about
things that concern me."

"You make no mistake there, Cora," he returned.

He was what is considered a brave man, with calm nerves and quick
judgment; physical danger had