"Anything come of that affair between her and Captain--Captain, what do you call him?" "Captain Dayrell, you mean. No; I believe the affair is broken off entirely. I have reason to believe that when it came to the point, Miss Lloyd would have nothing more to do with him." "Ah! what a little coquette she is! If a man like this Captain Dayrell is not good enough for her, what on earth does she expect? I'll take a glass of wine, if you please, Olive." He had brightened up all in a moment. He looked quite a different individual from the gloomy, careworn man who had entered the room only ten minutes before. "In his heart he loves her still," said Olive to herself, and her own heart overflowed with bitterness at the thought. From that moment any scrap of compunction that might hitherto have clung to her was flung to the winds. She poured him out a glass of Burgundy with a hand that betrayed not the slightest tremor before she spoke. "Is it not possible, Matthew," she said, in that icy tone which she knew so well how to assume when it suited her to do so, "is it not possible that Miss Lloyd's refusal to entertain the proposition of Captain Dayrell might arise from some other motive than mere coquetry?" "What do you mean?" he asked, quickly and suspiciously. "When you ask an ambiguous question like that, Miss Deane, you have generally got the answer to it ready at your tongue's end." "Thank you, Matthew," said Olive, quietly. "When Miss Lloyd turned her back on Captain Dayrell, is it not possible that she might be influenced in doing so by her liking for some one else?" Mr. Kelvin's face grew a shade paler, and he did not answer at once. "If you know so much, you can doubtless tell me the rest," he said, at last. "Let us have no more beating about the bush. You can, if you choose to do so, tell me the name of the person for whom you believe Miss Lloyd to have a preference. Who is the man?" His last question might have been a cry wrung from him by his own agony, so sharp and bitter was its tone. "What will you say if I tell you that it is your friend, Mr. Pomeroy?" "Pomeroy! Eleanor Lloyd in love with Pomeroy!" he cried, as he started to his feet. "No; I will never believe it. It is a lie!" "A lie, Matthew? Thank you again. It is but a few evenings ago since I saw--myself unseen--the head of Eleanor Lloyd laid on the shoulder of John Pomeroy: since I saw the lips of John Pomeroy pressed without reproof to those of Eleanor Lloyd. Such is my evidence. Set on it what value you please." He seized a knife suddenly, as though he would have liked to stab her to the heart. But her eyes met his unflinchingly, as she stood opposite to him, and presently he sank back into his chair, and let his arm fall on to the table, and so sat with bowed head for a time, without speaking.