is, I am afraid, a kind of duplicity which does not augur well
for your future happiness; and is a bad reply to your own candour and
honesty, Arthur. Do you know, I think, I think--I scarcely like to say
what I think," said Laura with a deep blush; but of course the blushing
young lady yielded to her cousin's persuasion, and expressed what her
thoughts were. "It looks to me, Arthur, as if there might be--there
might be somebody else," said, Laura, with a repetition of the blush.

"And if there is," broke in Arthur, "and if I am free once again, will
the best and dearest of all women----"

"You are not free, dear brother," Laura said calmly. "You belong to
another; of whom I own it grieves me to think ill. But I can't do
otherwise. It is very odd that in this letter she does not urge you to
tell her the reason why you have broken arrangements which would have
been so advantageous to you; and avoids speaking on the subject. She
somehow seems to write as if she knows her father's secret."

Pen said, "Yes, she must know it;" and told the story, which he had just
heard from Huxter, of the interview at Shepherd's Inn.

"It was not so that she described the meeting," said Laura; and, going
to her desk, produced from it that letter of Blanche's which mentioned
her visit to Shepherd's Inn. 'Another disappointment--only the Chevalier
Strong and a friend of his in the room.' This was all that Blanche had
said. "But she was bound to keep her father's secret, Pen," Laura added.
"And yet, and yet--it is very puzzling."

The puzzle was this, that for three weeks after this eventful discovery
Blanche had been only too eager about her dearest Arthur; was urging,
as strongly as so much modesty could urge, the completion of the happy
arrangements which were to make her Arthur's for ever; and now it seemed
as if something had interfered to mar these happy arrangements--as if
Arthur poor was not quite so agreeable to Blanche as Arthur rich and a
member of Parliament--as if there was some mystery. At last she said:

"Tunbridge Wells is not very far off, is it, Arthur? Hadn't you better
go and see her?"

They had been in town a week, and neither had thought of that simple
plan before!

CHAPTER LXXIV. Shows how Arthur had better have taken a Return-ticket

The train carried Arthur only too quickly to Tunbridge, though he had
time to review all the circumstances of his life as he made the brief
journey; and to acknowledge to w