e ready to inveigh against
the sin of unseemly jesting, to hope that all would be well, and to
shake their heads mournfully.

"Harwin!" cried Master Archdale as he heard the name of the writer; "it
seems impossible. I liked that man so much, and trusted him so much. I
knew he loved my little girl, but I thought it was with an honorable
love that would rejoice to see her happy. No, no, it cannot be true. We
must wait. But matters will come right at last."

"Yes," assented the Colonel across whose face an incomprehensible
expression had passed more than once during the reading; "it will all
come right. We must make it so."

A hum of conversation went on in the room, comment, inquiry, sympathy,
spoken to the chief actors in this scene, or if not near enough to them
for that, spoken to the first who were patient enough to listen instead
of themselves talking.

In the midst of it all Stephen raised his head, for he had been bending
over Katie who still clung to him, and asked when the next ship left for
England.

"In about three weeks," answered Col. Pepperrell, "and we will send out
a person competent to make full inquiries; the matter shall be sifted."

"I shall go," returned Stephen. "I shall make the necessary inquiries
myself, it will be doing something, and I may find the man. We need that
he should be found, Katie and I."

Elizabeth drew back still more; some flash of feeling made the blood
come hotly to her face for a moment, then fade away again.

Katie looked up, turned her eyes slowly from one to another, finding
everywhere the sympathy she sought.

"Go, Stephen, since you will feel better," she said, "but it's of no
use, I am sure. I understand now something Master Harwin said to me when
he left me. I did not know then what he meant. He has taken you away
from me forever." And with a sob, again she hid her face upon his
shoulder. Then, slowly drawing away from him, she turned to Elizabeth,
and in her eyes was something of the fury of a jealous woman mixed with
the bitter reproach of friendship betrayed.

"How could you," she said, "how could you consent to do it?"

She had drawn toward Elizabeth every gaze and every thought in the room;
she had pointed out the substitute on whom might be emptied those vials
of wrath that the proper object of them had taken care to escape.
Elizabeth heard on all sides of her the whispered, "Yes, how could she
do it, how could she consent to do it?" Suddenly she found