enough."

He looked so stern, so uncompromising, that Janetta hastened to take
refuge in concrete facts.

"But you will tell Margaret everything?"

"In my own good time."

"Do promise me that you will not marry her without letting her know--if
ever it comes, to a talk of your marriage."

"_If ever?_ It will come very soon, I hope. But I'll promise nothing.
And you must not make mischief."

"I am like you--I will promise nothing."

"I shall never forgive you, if you step between Margaret and me," said
Wyvis.

"I shall never step between you, I hope," said Janetta, in a dispirited
tone. "But it is better for me to promise nothing more."

Wyvis shrugged his shoulders, as if he thought it useless to argue with
her. She was sorry for the apparently unfriendly terms on which they
seemed likely to part; and it was a relief to her when, as they were
saying good-bye, he looked into her face rather wistfully and said,
"Wish me success, Janetta, after all."

"I wish you every happiness," she said. But whether that meant success
or not it would have been hard to say.

She saw him take his departure, with little Julian clinging to his hand,
and then she set about her household duties in her usual self-contained
and steadfast way. But her heart ached sadly--she did not quite know
why--and when she went to bed that night she lay awake for many weary
hours, weeping silently, but passionately, over the sorrow that, she
foresaw for her dearest friends, and, perhaps, also for herself.

CHAPTER XXVII.

A BIG BRIBE.

It seemed to Janetta as if she had almost expected to see Lady Caroline
Adair drive up to her door about four o'clock next day, in the very
victoria wherein the girl had once sat side by side with Margaret's
mother, and from which she had first set eyes on Wyvis Brand. She had
expected it, and yet her heart beat faster, and her color went and came,
as she disposed of her pupils in the little dining-room, and met her
visitor just as she crossed the hall.

"Can I speak to you for five minutes, Miss Colwyn?" said Lady Caroline,
in so suave a voice that for a moment Janetta felt reassured. Only for a
moment, however. When she had shut the drawing-room door, she saw that
her visitor's face was for once both cold and hard. Janetta offered a
chair, and Lady Caroline took it, but without a word of thanks. She had
evidently put on the "fine lady" manner, which Janetta detested from her
heart.

"I come to sp