‘I have been troubled in mind,’ he answered. ‘I am seldom any worse for what you call hard work--but I have had bitter anxieties since Christmas. Have you seen Miss Harefield lately?’ ‘No,’ answered Bella, ‘she has plenty of friends without me.’ ‘I do not think she has many friends--in Little Yafford.’ ‘She has the Dulcimers, who are devoted to her.’ ‘Mr. Dulcimer is her guardian, and executor to her father’s will. I am sure he will do all that is right and kind.’ ‘Do you mean that Mrs. Dulcimer is not kind to Beatrix?’ asked Bella, her heart beating fast and fiercely. From the moment he mentioned Beatrix Harefield’s name in the same breath with his own anxieties he had in a manner admitted his love for her. ‘It is not in Mrs. Dulcimer’s nature to be unkind,’ said Cyril, ‘but I fear she is not so warmly attached to Miss Harefield as she was a short time ago.’ ‘You think perhaps she has been influenced by things that have been said in Little Yafford,’ suggested Bella, eagerly. ‘I fear so.’ ‘I am very sorry for that. I pity Beatrix with all my heart. But deeply as I compassionate her wretched position, I hardly wonder that people should feel differently about her since her father’s death.’ ‘Do you--her own familiar friend--suspect her of the most awful crime the mind of man can conceive?’ exclaimed Cyril. ‘She may well stand condemned in the eyes of strangers if her bosom friend believes her guilty.’ ‘Oh, Mr. Culverhouse, how can you suggest anything so horrible?’ cried Bella. ‘I looked to you for her defence,’ he went on without heeding this ejaculation. ‘The outside world might suspect her. I, even, who have seen much in her to admire--and love--but who have had no opportunity of knowing her thoroughly, I might waver in my judgment--might be weakly influenced by the evil thoughts of others; but you who have lived with her like a sister, you must know the very depth of her heart--surely you can rise up boldly and say that she could not do this hideous thing. It is not in her nature to become--no, I will not utter the loathsome word,’ he cried, passionately. Bella answered nothing. Cyril looked at her searchingly in the grey evening light. Her eyelids were lowered, her face was grave and troubled. ‘What!’ he exclaimed; ‘not a word--not one word in defence of your friend?’ ‘What can I say?’ faltered Bella, with an embarrassed air. ‘Do you want me to tell you what I saw in that gloomy house? No, I had rather not say a word. Think me unkind, ungenerous if you like. I shall be silent about all things concerning Miss Harefield and her father.’ Cyril looked at her for a moment, with a countenance of blank despair. She saw the look, and it intensified her hatred of Beatrix. ‘How he must have loved her!’ she thought, ‘but will he go on loving her in the face of a suspicion that is daily growing stronger?’ Outside the Park gates Cyril left her.