quick pulsation stilled again.

"I suppose he went first to the hotel," thought she, and began arranging
her hair, disordered by the pillow. She heard Lola running upstairs, and
called her as she passed.

"I am coming, Cecil. I have got a message for you from Bertie, which is,
that he has only gone up to the hotel, and will be here in ten minutes."

Cecil kissed the welcome Mercury, and drew her into the room shutting the
door.

"Well, dear, and did you have a pleasant day? What did you do?"

"Oh, yes," said Lola, whose eyes were glittering with excitement, and who
had altogether rather a strange manner. "That is to say, pretty well. We
didn't do much."

"How was that?"

"Why, Bertie and Bluebell were so stupid. They went away by themselves
for ever so long."

Cecil felt as if a hand had suddenly clutched her heart and frozen the
blood in her veins. Could that pale face, with wildly gleaming eyes, be
the same so sweet and tranquil, that was carelessly smiling at the child
an instant before?

"And do you know, Cecil," pursued Lola, warming with her subject, and
speaking with intense excitement, "Bertie kissed Bluebell. I saw him do
it."

A pause, and the child, apparently gratified by the interest she had
awakened, continued,--

"I think Bluebell was crying, and he trying to console her; at any rate,
I heard him say he 'loved her very much.'"

One has noticed some years warm weather set in delusively early, and
blossoms of fruit and flowers nursed in its smiles peep prematurely
forth; and then a biting frost and northeast wind will spring up, the sun
all the while treacherously shining, and in one hour destroy the bud and
promise for ever. No less swift was the scathing power wielded by that
innocent executioner. Every word, fraught with conviction and crushing
evidence, sank deep down into her heart. She sat so still that Lola got
frightened, and entreated her to say what was the matter; but Cecil
appeared unconscious of her presence, and, scared and bewildered, the
child shrank away.

Then the girl rose up, and with rapid, uneven steps paced the room. After
a while, first bolting the door, she unlocked a sandal-wood box, where,
tied with a ribbon and carefully dated, was a packet of Bertie's letters.
One by one she patiently read them through, noting and comparing
passages, then tying them up, wrote the day of the month and the hour on
a slip of paper, and finally enclosed all in an outer cover, which