I looked at him wistfully. After the intense agitation and dread he had betrayed, this light tone sounded very unnatural; almost like a mocking make-believe. "Mr. Chandos, I fear you live in some great peril," was my timid rejoinder. "I suppose I may not be told what it is; but I wish I could ease you; I wish I could avert it from you, whatever it may be." As if by magic, his mood changed, and the dark shade came back to his countenance. "So you won't let me cheat myself, Anne! I was trying if I could do it." "If you would but tell me what it is! If I could avert it from you!" "No living being can do that, child. I wish I could forget it, if only for a moment." "And you cannot?" "Never; by night or by day. I appear as the rest of the world does; I laugh, I talk; but within lies ever that one terrible care, weighing me down like an incubus." How terrible it was, I could see even then, as he covered his eyes for a moment with his wasted hand. "But to-night has brought me a great relief—though it may be but temporary," he resumed, looking up. "How thankful I felt when the police explained their errand, God alone can ever know." "But what errand did you fear they had come upon?" "That I cannot tell you. Not upon quite so harmless a one as it turned out to be." "Better, perhaps, that they had come for me." Mr. Chandos smiled—as well he might at the words; and passed to a gayer strain. "Which of the three would you have preferred to ride before, had I given you into custody for finding that money of mine in your possession? We must have looked for a pillion!" But I did not answer in the same jesting spirit; I could not so readily forget my alarm, or their hidden trouble. Very gravely, for it was nearly bedtime, I put my hand out to wish him good-night. He took it within both of his, and there was a pause of silence. "Anne," he said, his low voice sounding strangely solemn in the stillness of the room, "you have been to-night forced into what may be called a species of confidence as to our unhappy secrets; at least, to have become cognizant that Chandos has things to be concealed. Will you be true to us—in so far as not to speak of this?" "I will." "In the house and out of it?"—and he seemed to lay emphasis on the "in." "I will be true as heaven," I answered in my earnestness. "I will seem to forget that I know it myself." "Thank you, my best friend. Good-night." I had come up earlier than usual; it was not ten o'clock; and I thought I might read for half an hour without transgressing any good rule. But where had I left my book? Looking about, I could not see it. It occurred to me then. I had been sitting reading in the gallery window for some minutes before dinner; and must have left the book there. It was but a few steps, and I went to fetch it.