nothing that I know to be true."

"And I am to speak freely?"

"As freely as you are able."

"Here it is, then, in five words: You are in love, Tony,--in love with
that beautiful widow."

Tony held his head down between his hands, and was silent.

"You feel that the case is hopeless,--that is to say, that you know,
besides being of rank and wealth, she is one to make a great match, and
that her family would never consent to hear of your pretensions; and yet
all this while you have a sort of lurking suspicion that she cares for
you?"

"No, no!" muttered Tony, between his hands.

"Well, that she did once, and that not very long ago."

"Not even that," said Tony, drearily.

"I know better,--you _do_ think so. And I'll tell you more; what makes
you so keenly alive to her change--perfidy, you would like to call
it--is this, that you have gone through that state of the disease
yourself."

"I don't understand you."

"Well, you shall. The lovely Alice--isn't that the name?"

Tony nodded.

"The lovely Alice got your own heart only, at second hand. You used to
be in love with the little girl that was governess at Richmond."

"Not a word of it true,--nothing of the kind," broke out Tony, fiercely.
"Dolly and I were brother and sister,--we always said we were."

"What does that signify? I tried the brother-and-sister dodge, and I
know what it cost me when she married Maccleston;" and Skeffy here threw
his cigar into the sea, as though an emblem of his shipwrecked destiny.
"Mind me well, Butler," said he, at last; "I did not say that you ever
told your heart you loved her; but she knew it, take my word for it. She
knew, and in the knowing it was the attraction that drew you on."

"But I was not drawn on."

"Don't tell me, sir. Answer me just this: Did any man ever know the
hour, or even the day, that he caught a fever? Could he go back in
memory, and say, it was on Tuesday last, at a quarter to three, that my
pulse rose, my respiration grew shorter, and my temples began to throb?
So it is with love, the most malignant of all fevers. All this time that
you and What's-her-name were playing brother and sister so innocently,
your hearts were learning to feel in unison,--just as two pendulums in
the same room acquire the same beat and swing together. You 've heard
that?"

"I may; but you are all wrong about Dolly."

"What would she say to it?"

"Just what I do."

"Well, we cannot ask her, for she 's not here."