"I certainly thought that I should have seen you at Stammars on the evening of the ball," she said, after a time. "I had an invitation, but I did not choose to go. Too much of a tag-rag-and-bob-tail affair for me." "Your absence was commented upon both by Sir Thomas and Lady Dudgeon at breakfast next morning." "What does that matter to me?" "Shall I tell you something else?" "Just as you please." "After Sir Thomas and Lady Dudgeon had left the room, I rose from the table and went and sat down for a few minutes in one of the deep window recesses. Miss Lloyd and Captain Dayrell rose too, and went towards the fire-place. I suppose from what followed that Miss Lloyd had forgotten that I was in the room. Said the Captain to her: 'Who is this Mr. Kelvin, whose absence from the ball Sir Thomas seemed to regret so much?'--'Oh, a mere nobody--a provincial attorney,' answered Miss Lloyd." "She said that, did she!" muttered Kelvin. "'Oh, by-the-by,' continued the Captain, 'I want to consult a lawyer on a point of business while I'm down here, and I daresay this fellow of Sir Thomas's would do as well as anybody else.'--'Yes, I should rather like you to see him, Frank,' said Miss Lloyd.--'Why him in particular?' asked the Captain.--'Because this very man--this country attorney--actually had the audacity, no very long time ago, to ask me to become his wife!'--'Confound his impudence!' said the Captain, and then they both laughed, and left the room." A deep flush mounted to the face of Matthew Kelvin. He got up from the table, and went and rested his two elbows on the chimney-piece, and stood gazing into the fire without speaking. The lie just told by Olive, but which he had accepted as truth, had evidently touched him to the quick. Olive, playing with her tea-spoon, watched him narrowly. "Do you think of telling Miss Lloyd before long that she is not Miss Lloyd?" Olive ventured at last to remark. "No, not yet--not yet!" answered Kelvin. "Now that I have kept the secret so long, it shall not be told till the eve of her marriage with this man. I leave it for you to let me know when the proper time has come. Let her suffer--as she has made me suffer." With that he left the room. Nor, during Olive's visit, was the subject again alluded to between them. All too soon, to Olive's thinking, did her visit come to an end.