“Oh, my poor, dear thing!” she said; “please don’t cry. You are upset about something, and speaking makes it worse. Let’s get up and walk quietly to and fro a little, and then if you feel better and still want to tell me, you shall, and if not--why, just don’t tell me. I am sure it is nothing bad, and, whatever it is, remember I forgive you, if it in any way concerns me.” Miss Clifford tied her face into a series of hard knots, and put on a series of expressions so widely different from each other that she could have made her fortune as an impersonator at a music-hall if any of them had resembled any one else, but they were all of them unique. In a few minutes, however, she recovered. “No, I want to tell you, dear Miss Avesham,” she said, “if you will excuse the liberty of my calling you that, and Phœbe was so unkind that I felt I should never be happy again, if she was right, and I never told you. She said I drew Colonel Raymond on to say what he did.” Jeannie’s companion struggled a moment with a wild spasm of internal laughter at the thought of Miss Clara drawing Colonel Raymond on, and conquered it. “I don’t quite understand,” she said, “Tell me all about it from the beginning.” “Well, it was this way,” said Miss Clara, “that picture came to our house, and of course Phœbe and I both recognised it, and Phœbe said it would be very awkward if we exhibited it if it so happened that it had been done without your knowledge. And she suggested--it was she who suggested it--that there might be some understanding between you and Mr. Collingwood.” “I see,” said Jeannie. “Well?” “At that moment there came a ring at the door, and it was Colonel and Mrs. Raymond. And Phœbe said how lucky, because Colonel Raymond, being your cousin, would be sure to know if there was anything. So in they came, and I showed the picture to the Colonel. Then there came in what Phœbe blames me for, and she was so unkind I hardly ate a bit of lunch. I can hardly tell you about it.” “There is no hurry,” said Jeannie again, seeing that Miss Clifford’s face was growing contorted. But after a moment she went on. “Colonel Raymond recognised it at once,” she said, “and looked up at me. And Phœbe says I looked slyly at him, and prompted him to say what he did. You know, Miss Avesham, Colonel Raymond is rather an odd man in some ways. He can’t bear that any one should hear anything before he knows it himself, and naturally he would feel it more if I knew something about you particularly before he did. He did catch my eye, it is true, and-- Oh, yes, I must tell you all; Phœbe was right--I meant that he should. And then he broke out with, ‘How news travels, but of course you must say nothing about it!’ And, oh, dear me, Miss Avesham, if it has all been my fault I shall never, never forgive myself.” Jeannie got up from her chair, took both Miss Clara’s hands in hers, and kissed her.