"She did--but said, in the next breath, that it would be useless,

since the minds of the others were fully made up. I knew she thought

Winston arbitrary, and Mabel credulous; but she was afraid to

interfere. As for myself, what could I have told you that you had

not already heard? I could only hope that the cloud was not heavy,

and would soon blow over. From the hour in which it cast the first

shadow upon her, Mabel was estranged from me--the decline of our

intimacy commenced. The Ayletts take pride in keeping their own

counsel. Winston, who never liked me, and whom I detested, was as

confidential with me in this affair as my old playfellow and school-

mate. Believe me when I declare that if my intercession could have

availed aught with her, I would have run the risk of her displeasure

and Winston's anathemas by offering it."

"I do believe you! Nor need you expatiate to me upon the obduracy of

the Aylett pride. Surely, no one living has more reason than I to

comprehend how unreasoning and implacable I find it is. I looked for

injustice at Winston Aylett's hands. I read him truly in our only

private interview. Insolent, vain, despotic--wedded to his dogmas,

and intolerant of others' opinion, he disliked me because I refused

to play the obedient vassal to his will and requirements; stood

upright as one man should in the presence of a brother-mortal,

instead of cringing at his lordship's footstool. But he was

powerless to do more than annoy me without his sister's

co-operation."

"She stood in great, almost slavish, awe of him," urged Rosa, in

extenuation of Mabel's infidelity.

"Aye!" savagely. "And love was not strong enough to cast out fear!

She was justifiable if she hesitated to entrust herself and her

happiness to the keeping of one she had known but two months. It was

prudent--not false--in her to weigh, to the finest grain, the

evidence furnished by her brother to prove my unfitness to be her

husband. But having done all this, she should have remembered that I

had rights also. It was infamous, cowardly, cruel beyond degree, to

cast her vote against me without giving me a chance of

self-exculpation. Her hand--not his--struck the dagger into my

back!"

Again Rosa's fingers involuntarily (?) stole into his, to recall him

to a knowledge of where he was, and there were fresh tears, ready to

fall from her gazelle eyes, when his agitation began to subside.

"My poor child!" he said, penitently. "I am behaving like a madman,

you like a pitying angel! We will have no more scenes, and you must

oblige me by forgetting this one, as fast as may be. From to-night

Mabel Aylett is to me as if she had never been. To nobody except

yourself have I betrayed the secret of my hurt. After this, when yon

think of it, believe that it is a hurt no longer."




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