oached him sharply. "I'm to be Bertram Henshaw's--_wife_." From
Billy's shocked young lips the word dropped with a ringing force that
was at once accusatory and prohibitive. It was as if, by the mere
utterance of the word, wife, she had drawn a sacred circle about her and
placed herself in sanctuary.

From the blazing accusation in her eyes Arkwright fell back.

"Wife! You are to be Bertram Henshaw's wife!" he exclaimed. There was no
mistaking the amazed incredulity on his face.

Billy caught her breath. The righteous indignation in her eyes fled, and
a terrified appeal took its place.

"You don't mean that you _didn't--know?_" she faltered.

There was a moment's silence. A power quite outside herself kept Billy's
eyes on Arkwright's face, and forced her to watch the change there from
unbelief to belief, and from belief to set misery.

"No, I did not know," said the man then, dully, as he turned, rested his
arm on the mantel behind him, and half shielded his face with his hand.

Billy sank into a low chair. Her fingers fluttered nervously to her
throat. Her piteous, beseeching eyes were on the broad back and bent
head of the man before her.

"But I--I don't see how you could have helped--knowing," she stammered
at last. "I don't see how such a thing could have happened that you
shouldn't know!"

"I've been trying to think, myself," returned the man, still in a dull,
emotionless voice.

"It's been so--so much a matter of course. I supposed everybody knew
it," maintained Billy.

"Perhaps that's just it--that it was--so much a matter of course,"
rejoined the man. "You see, I know very few of your friends, anyway--who
would be apt to mention it to me."

"But the announcements--oh, you weren't here then," moaned Billy. "But
you must have known that--that he came here a good deal--that we were
together so much!"

"To a certain extent, yes," sighed Arkwright. "But I took your
friendship with him and his brothers as--as a matter of course. _That_
was _my_ 'matter of course,' you see," he went on bitterly. "I knew
you were Mr. William Henshaw's namesake, and Calderwell had told me
the story of your coming to them when you were left alone in the world.
Calderwell had said, too, that--" Arkwright paused, then hurried on a
little constrainedly--"well, he said something that led me to think Mr.
Bertram Henshaw was not a marrying man, anyway."

Billy winced and changed color. She had noticed the pause, and she knew