oquetry--Audrey
was far too high-minded to coquet with any man--but simply by the warm
friendliness of her manner. She had liked his company; she had accepted
his attentions, not once had she repulsed him; and the consequence was
his attachment had grown and increased in intensity day by day, until it
had overmastered him. He had said that his heart was almost broken, and
it was her fault. What right had she to be so kind to him, until her
very softness and graciousness had fed his wild hopes? Was it not true
when he had implied that his misery lay at her door?

Audrey felt as though her own heart was broken that night--such a
passion of pity and remorse swept over her. What would she not give to
undo it all!

'If I could only bear some of his suffering,' she thought, 'if I could
only comfort him, I should not care what became of myself. I would
sooner bear anything than incur this awful responsibility of spoiling a
life;' and Audrey wept again.

But even at this miserable crisis she shrank from questioning herself
too closely. A sort of terror and strange beating at the heart assailed
her if she tried to look into her own thoughts. Was there no subtle
sweetness in the knowledge that she was so beloved? No wish, lying deep
down in her heart, that it might have been possible to comfort him?

'It would not do--it would not do. I am sure of him, but not of myself,'
she thought, 'and it would make them all so unhappy. If I could only
think it right----' and then she stopped, and there was a sad, sad look
in her eyes. 'I will not think of it any more to-night.' And then she
knelt and, in her simple girlish way, prayed that God would forgive her,
for she had been wrong, miserably wrong; and would comfort him, and make
it possible for them to remain friends: 'for I do not wish to lose him,'
thought Audrey, as she laid her head on her pillow that, for once in her
bright young life, seemed sown with thorns.

It seemed to Audrey as though she had never passed a more uncomfortable
three weeks than those that followed that unfortunate talk in the Brail
lanes; and, in spite of all her efforts to appear as though nothing had
happened, her looks and gravity were noticed by both Mrs. Ross and
Geraldine.

'I told your father that it was a chill,' observed Mrs. Ross, on more
than one occasion. 'She is growing thin, and her eyes are so heavy in
the morning. There is nothing worse than a suppressed cold,' she went on
anxiously, for