ght I had better stay here quietly."

"Is your head better now?"

"Yes, thanks; only this book is so stupid. I think novels are stupid
nowadays; the heroes are so gaudy, and the heroines have not a spark of
spirit. You may talk to me instead, if you like. What have you been
doing with yourself all day?"

Bessie was dumb with amazement. Was this pride or was Edna acting a
part, and pretending not to care? She could break her lover's heart one
minute and talk of novels the next. Bessie's simplicity was at fault;
she could make nothing of this.

"Why are you looking at me in that way?" asked Edna fretfully, on
receiving no answer; and as she raised herself on the cushions, Bessie
could see her face more plainly. It looked very pale, and her eyes were
painfully bright, and then she gave a hard little laugh that had no
mirth in it. "So mamma or Richard has been talking to you! What a
transparent little creature you are, Bessie! You are dreadfully shocked,
are you not, that I have sent Neville about his business?"

"Oh, Edna, please don't talk about it in that way."

"If I talk about it at all it must be in my own way. If Neville thought
I could not live without him, he finds himself mistaken now. I am not
the sort of girl who could put up with tyranny; other people may submit
to be ordered about and treated like a child, but I am not one of them."

"Edna, surely you consider that you owe a duty to the man you have
promised to marry."

"I owe him none--I will never owe him any duty." And here Edna's manner
became excited. "It is mamma I ought to obey, and I will not always
yield to her; but I have never given Neville the right to lecture and
control me; no man shall--no man!" angrily.

"Edna, how can you bear to part with Mr. Sinclair, when he is so good
and loves you so much?"

"I can bear it very well. I can do without him," she replied
obstinately; "at least I have regained my liberty, and become my own
mistress."

"Will that console you for making him miserable? Oh, Edna, if you had
only seen his face when I gave him your message, I am sure you must have
relented. He has gone away unhappy, and you let him go."

"Yes, I let him go. How dare he come down here to spy on my movements?
Captain Grant, indeed! But it is all of a piece; his jealously is
unbearable. I will no longer put up with it. Why do you talk about it,
Bessie? You do not know Mr. Neville--Mr. Sinclair, I mean. He is a
stranger to you; he has gi