"Something has happened, Joyce," says her sister, going over to her. "Something is happening always," returned Joyce, with a rather impatient smile. "Yes, but to you just now." "You are sure to make me tell you sooner or later," says Miss Kavanagh, "and even if I didn't, Tommy would. I met Mr. Dysart at that gallery to-day." "Felix?" says Mrs. Monkton, feeling herself an abominable hypocrite; yet afraid to confess the truth. Something in the girl's whole attitude forbids a confession, at this moment at all events. "Yes." "Well?" "Well?" "He was glad to see you, darling?" very tenderly. "Was he? I don't know. He looked very ill. He said he had had a bad cough. He is coming to see you." "You were kind to him, Joyce?" "I didn't personally insult him, if you mean that." "Oh, no, I don't mean that, you know what I mean. He was ill, unhappy; you did not make him more unhappy?" "It is always for him!" cries the girl, with jealous anger. "Is there never to be a thought for me? Am I nothing to you? Am I never unhappy? Why don't you ask if he was kind to me?" "Was he ever unkind?" "Well, you can forget! He said dreadful things to me--dreadful. I am not likely to forget them if you are. After all, they did not hurt you." "Joyce!" "Yes, I know--I know everything you would say. I am ungrateful, abominable, but----He was unkind to me! He said what no girl would ever forgive, and yet you have not one angry word for him." "Never mind all that," says Mrs. Monkton, soothingly. "Tell me what you did to-day--what you said." "As little as possible," defiantly. "I tell you I don't want ever to see him again, or hear of him; I think I hate him. And he looked dying." She stops here, as if finding a difficulty about saying another word. She coughs nervously; then, recovering herself, and as if determined to assert herself anew and show how real is the coldness that she has declared--"Yes, dying, I think," she says, stubbornly. "Oh, I don't think he looked as bad as that!" says Barbara, hastily, unthinkingly filled with grief, not only at this summary dismissal of poor Felix from our earthly sphere, but for her sister's unhappiness, which is as plain to her as though no little comedy had been performed for the concealment of it. "You don't!" repeats Joyce, lifting her head and directing a piercing glance at her. "You! What do you know about him?" "Why--you just said----" stammers Mrs. Monkton, and then breaks down ignominiously. "You knew he was in town," says Joyce, advancing to her, and looking down on her with clasped-hands and a pale face. "Barbara, speak. You knew he was here, and never told me; you," with a sudden, fresh burst of inspiration, "sent him to that place to-day to meet me." "Oh, no, dearest. No, indeed. He himself can tell you. It was only that he----" "Asked where I was going to, at such and such an hour, and you told him." She is still standing over poor Mrs. Monkton in an attitude that might almost be termed menacing.