re quick, and I heard what he said to her, and
I heard also her reply. 'Why should I go away, dear papa! I don't mind
in the least.' Kind of her not to mind, wasn't it? And do you think I
was going to 'mind,' after that? I lifted up my head, which I had
hitherto bent studiously over my soup, and began to talk to my neighbor
on the other side, a stalwart English clergyman with a blue ribbon at
his button-hole.

"But presently, to my surprise, Lady Caroline addressed me. 'I hope you
have not forgotten me, Mr. Brand,' she said, quite graciously. I must
confess, Janetta, that I stared at her. The calm audacity of the woman
took me by surprise. She looked as amiable as if we were close friends
meeting after a long absence. I hope you won't be very angry with me
when I tell you how I answered her. 'Pardon me,' I said, 'my name is
Wyvis--not Brand.' And then I went on talking to my muscular Christian
on the left.

"She looked just a little bit disconcerted. Not much, you know. It would
take a great deal to disconcert Lady Caroline very much. But she did not
try to talk to me again! I choked her off that time, anyhow.

"And, now, let me make a confession. I don't admire Margaret Adair in
the very least. I did, I know: and I made a fool of myself, and worse,
perhaps, about her: but she does, not move one fibre of my heart now,
she does not make it beat a bit faster, and she does not give my eye
more pleasure than a wax doll would give me. She is fair and sweet and
tranquil, I know: but what has she done with her heart and her brain? I
suppose her mother has them in her keeping, and will make them over to
her husband when she marries?... I know a woman who is worth a dozen
Margarets....

"But I have made up my mind to live single, so long as Julian's mother
is alive. Legally, I am not bound; morally, I can scarcely feel myself
free. And I know that you feel with me, Janet. The world may call us
over-scrupulous; but I set your judgment higher than that of the world.
And all I can say about Margaret is that I fell into a passing fit of
madness, and cared for nothing but what my fancy dictated; and that now
I am sane--clothed in my right mind, so to speak--I am disgusted with
myself for my folly. Lady Caroline and her daughter should have taken
higher ground. They were right to send me away--but not right to act on
unworthy motives. In the long nights that I have spent camping out under
the quiet stars, far away from the dwellin