and besides them those of young girls who were
now women, some of whom Honora had met and known in New York or Newport.

Presently he closed the book abruptly and returned it to the safe. To her
sharpened senses, the very act itself was significant. There were other
and blank pages in it for future years; and under different circumstances
he might have laid it in its time-honoured place, on the great table in
the library.

It was not until some weeks later that Honora was seated one afternoon in
the study waiting for him to come in, and sorting over some of the
letters that they had not yet examined, when she came across a new lot
thrust carelessly at the bottom of the older pile. She undid the elastic.
Tucked away in one of the envelopes she was surprised to find a letter of
recent date--October. She glanced at it, read involuntarily the first
lines, and then, with a little cry, turned it over. It was from Cecil
Grainger. She put it back into the envelope whence it came, and sat
still.

After a while, she could not tell how long, she heard Hugh stamping the
snow from his feet in the little entry beside the study. And in a few
moments he entered, rubbing his hands and holding them out to the blaze.

"Hello, Honora," he said; "are you still at it? What's the matter--a
hitch?"

She reached mechanically into the envelope, took out the letter, and
handed it to him.

"I found it just now, Hugh. I didn't read much of it--I didn't mean to
read any. It's from Mr. Grainger, and you must have overlooked it."

He took it.

"From Cecil?" he said, in an odd voice. "I wasn't aware that he had sent
me anything-recently."

As he read, she felt the anger rise within him, she saw it in his eyes
fixed upon the sheet, and the sense of fear, of irreparable loss, that
had come over her as she had sat alone awaiting him, deepened. And yet,
long expected verdicts are sometimes received in a spirit of
recklessness: He finished the letter, and flung it in her lap.

"Read it," he said.

"Oh, Hugh!" she protested tremulously. "Perhaps--perhaps I'd better not."
He laughed, and that frightened her the more. It was the laugh, she was
sure, of the other man she had not known.

"I've always suspected that Cecil was a fool--now I'm sure of it. Read
it!" he repeated, in a note of command that went oddly with his next
sentence; "You will find that it is only ridiculous."

This assurance of the comedy it contained, however, did not serve t