"Are you?" says her visitor, drily. "Seems to me I've come at the wrong moment. Shall I go away?" "Go! No," says Joyce, reddening, and frowning a little. "Why should you?" "Well, you've been crying," says Miss Maliphant, in her terribly downright way. "I hate people when I've been crying; but then it makes me a fright, and it only makes you a little less pretty. I suppose I mustn't ask what it is all about?" "If you did I don't believe I could tell you," says Joyce, laughing rather unsteadily. "I was merely thinking, and it is the simplest thing in the world to feel silly now and then." "Thinking? Of Mr. Beauclerk?" asks Miss Maliphant, promptly, and without the slightest idea of hesitation. "I saw him leaving this as I came by the upper road! Was it he who made you cry?" "Certainly not," says Joyce, indignantly. "It looks like it, however," says the other, her masculine voice growing even sterner. "What was he saying to you?" "I really do think----" Joyce is beginning, coldly, when Miss Maliphant stops her by an imperative gesture. "Oh, I know. I know all about that," says she, contemptuously. "One shouldn't ask questions about other people's affairs; I've learned my manners, though I seldom make any use of my knowledge, I admit. After all, I see no reason why I shouldn't ask you that question. I want to know, and there is no one to tell me but you. Was he proposing to you, eh?" "Why should you think that?" says Joyce, subdued by the masterful manner of the other, and by something honest and above board about her that is her chief characteristic. There is no suspicion, either, about her of her questions being prompted by mere idle curiosity. She has said she wanted to know, and there was meaning in her tone. "Why shouldn't I?" says she now. "He came down here early this afternoon. He goes away in haste--and I find you in tears. Everything points one way." "I don't see why it should point in that direction." "Come, be open with me," says the heiress, brusquely, in an abrupt fashion that still fails to offend. "Did he propose to you?" Joyce hesitates. She raises her head and looks at Miss Maliphant earnestly. What a good face she has, if plain. Too good to be made unhappy. After all, why not tell her the truth? It would be a warning. It was impossible to be blind to the fact that Miss Maliphant had been glad to receive the dishonest attentions paid to her every now and then by Beauclerk. Those attentions would probably be increased now, and would end but one way. He would get Miss Maliphant's money, and she--that good, kind-hearted girl--what would she get? It seems cruel to be silent, and yet to speak is difficult. Would it be fair or honorable to divulge his secret?