"Let us leave her share in the matter, then, out of the question," continued Elizabeth. "If you believe what you say, is it wise to run into danger as you do?" "There's no help for it, Bessie; I should die if I could not see her dear little face! Oh, you can't think what I suffered while I was gone--I didn't talk about it--I don't even want to think of it; but, Bessie, dear, sometimes I used to think I should go out of my senses." He was speaking seriously now; his face was absolutely pale with emotion, and his eyes--the one fine feature of his face--were misty with a remembrance of old pain. "Poor Tom," murmured Elizabeth, in her pitying way, always full of sympathy for the trouble of others, whatever her own might be; "poor, dear Tom, I know how hard it is." "No; you can't know, Bessie; you can't have the least idea! You don't know what it is to have something to hide--to go about with a secret gnawing at your heart--never able to open your lips--suffering night and day--" He stopped suddenly and looked at his cousin with wonder; she was leaning back in her chair, her face was pale as death, and her lips parted in a dreary sigh. Tom drew close to her chair and bent over her, with a look of anxious surprise on his disturbed features. "Are you sick, Bessie?" he asked. "No, no," she answered, controlling herself. His words brought up her own secret burden so vividly before her that for an instant she had been dreadfully shaken. "You look so pale; I'm afraid you are going to be ill." "Indeed, I am not," she answered. Tom knelt down by her on both knees, played with her embroidery silks, and finally said: "Bessie, since we're talking plainly, may I say something?" "Yes, Tom." "Somehow, since I came back from Europe, you don't seem so happy as you used--maybe it's only one of my blunders--but I have thought you looked troubled--like a person that was always expecting something dreadful to happen." She forced a smile upon her lips and then compelled them to answer him: "Oh, you foolish Tom!" "Then it is not so!" he urged. "You are not unhappy?" "How could I be unhappy--is not my life pleasant, prosperous beyond anything I could ever have hoped for?" "It seems so; that made me think it must be just one of my silly fancies." "Nothing more, Tom." "Mellen's the most splendid fellow in the world," pursued he; "and you couldn't well be sad with that little darling about you." Elizabeth took up her silks again. "Dismiss all such thoughts from your mind, Tom." "I shall be only too glad. But tell me once more that I am an over-anxious busybody, minding everybody's concerns but my own. You see, Bessie, I love you like a sister, and will stand by you, by Jupiter, always. But these stupid ideas of mine, there's no foundation for them?" "How could there be?" "That's what I say to myself always," cried Tom. "Well, dear, I won't think such nonsense again." "Do not, I beg; and never mention it to anybody."