think I would not have
borne far more unhappiness willingly for your sake? Is it not all
forgotten as if it had not been?'

'It is not unhappiness I meant,' he replied, 'though I cannot bear
to think of what you have undergone. Unhappiness enough have I caused
indeed. But I meant, that you have to forgive the advantage I took of
your reliance on me to lead you into error, when you were too young to
know what it amounted to.'

'It was not an engagement,' faltered Laura.

'Laura, don't, for mercy's sake, recall my own hateful sophistries,'
exclaimed Philip, as if unable to control the pain it gave him; 'I have
had enough of that from my sister;' then softening instantly: 'it was
self-deceit; a deception first of myself, then of you. You had not
experience enough to know whither I was leading you, till I had involved
you; and when the sight of death showed me the fallacy of the salve to
my conscience, I had nothing for it but to confess, and leave you to
bear the consequences. O Laura! when I think of my conduct towards you,
it seems even worse than that towards--towards your brother-in-law!'

His low, stern tone of bitter suffering and self-reproach was something
new and frightful to Laura. She clung to his arm and tried to say--'O,
don't speak in that way! You know you meant the best. You could not help
being mistaken.'

'If I did know any such thing, Laura! but the misery of perceiving that
my imagined anxiety for his good,--his good, indeed! was but a cloak for
my personal enmity--you can little guess it.'

Laura tried to say that appearances were against Guy, but he would not
hear.

'If they were, I triumphed in them. I see now that a shade of honest
desire to see him exculpated would have enabled me to find the clue. If
I had gone to St. Mildred's at once--interrogated him as a friend--seen
Wellwood--but dwelling on the _ifs_ of the last two years can bring
nothing but distraction,' he added, pausing suddenly.

'And remember,' said Laura, 'that dear Guy himself was always grateful
to you. He always upheld that you acted for his good. Oh! the way he
took it was the one comfort I had last year.'

'The acutest sting, and yet the only balm,' murmured Philip; 'see,
Laura,' and he opened the first leaf of Guy's prayer-book, which he had
been using at the christening.

A whispered 'Dear Guy!' was the best answer she could make, and the
tears were in her eyes. 'He was so very kind to me, when he saw me that
unh