Aldred said nothing. She sat on the fender, poking the little, soft volcanoes that oozed out of the coal, squeezing them down, and watching the jets of gas that followed. "It was a funny idea to write it in a letter!" said Mabel. "You always do quaint things; I suppose it's because you're such an original girl." "Aren't you going to read it?" asked Aldred, in a strained voice. "Why should I? I know what's in it. No, it shall go down into that hollow in the fire. Give me the poker. There! What a blaze it makes!" Aldred watched her confession flare up and sink into ashes in the heart of the hot coals; there was a strange look on her face, a look that her friend could not fathom. "Suppose I had said nothing at all about it next week, and had kept the 'perfect', would you still have cared for me?" "Oh, but you couldn't!" cried Mabel. "It's impossible! Why, it wouldn't be you to do such a thing!" "But if----" "There are no 'ifs'. I could never believe any wrong of you, darling; and yet----" "What are you two crouching over the fire in the dark for?" exclaimed Dora Maxwell, bursting suddenly into the room. "We are going to act dumb charades in the hall, and Miss Drummond and the teachers are all there to watch. Come along! We've thought of some most lovely words, which I'm sure they'll never think of guessing." So another opportunity was lost, and Aldred's secret was still untold. She dared not run the risk of breaking the friendship. If she was blamed for such a small fault, could she ever be forgiven for so much greater a deception? It was so sweet to be the very centre of Mabel's adoration, to be placed on a pinnacle, and loved with such rapturous devotion. Could she bear to see all this fade utterly, or even partially, away? No! She was glad and thankful that the letter had been burnt; she felt as if she had escaped from a great danger. She told Miss Bardsley about her "English communication", and took her bad mark with resignation; it was a small evil, compared with what she had avoided. There seemed no retreat now from the course she had taken; she could not in future plead the excuse that she was ignorant of her identification with the heroine of the fire. The affair had been mentioned so plainly that it was impossible for the most dense and obtuse person not to have understood the allusion. Had Mabel on the first occasion questioned her point-blank, I think she would probably have owned up immediately; but every wrongdoing bears its own ill harvest, and the second slip from the straight path is always easier than the first. Aldred persuaded herself that she had not told any deliberate lies, though she was fully aware that her silence made her equally guilty of falsehood. Finally, she tried to dismiss the whole thing from her thoughts. Mabel had promised not to speak of it again; surely it was finished with, and there was no need to trouble further? Yet it was a trouble. Deep down in her heart