unless voluntarily confided, should be kept as sacred from feminine curiosity as the secrets of the Rosicrucians. In the present case, he could hardly blame Helen for betraying consciousness of a fact that had been, so to speak, "flashed" before her eyes; but he felt somehow as if she ought to have ignored it. He would not make the smallest concession. I have told you, how obstinate and unrelenting the frank, kindly nature could at times become: the shadow of a great disaster was closing round him fast, and his heart was hardened now, even as the heart was hardened of that unhappy King, predestined to be a world's wonder, whom the torments of nine plagues only confirmed in his fell purpose--"not to let Israel go." He pushed all the letters aside with an impatient movement of his arm, and thrust them into the pocket of his shooting-jacket before he left the table, without opening one of them. All through breakfast he persisted in talking carelessly on indifferent subjects, in spite of the evident discomfort and nervousness of his cousin, and the reticence of "my lady;" eventually he had to fall back on the Squire, who, ignorant of this fresh cause of discord as he had been of the former one, was open to any fair offer in the way of conversation. An hour or so later, as Wyverne was going down to his uncle's room (they were to shoot some small outlying covers) he met Helen in the picture-gallery. "I suppose you are aware that a letter came for me this morning from Mrs. Lenox?" he said. There was no particular reason why Miss Vavasour should feel guilty, and blush painfully, nevertheless she did both, as she answered him. "Yes, Alan, I could not help seeing it, you know, and--" He interrupted her, somewhat impatiently. "Of course you could not help it, child. You were bound to remark it, where it lay. I suppose it was so fore-ordained by Fate, or some more commonplace power. I know it worried you; but, indeed, it vexed me quite as much. I have no idea what she wrote about, for I burnt the letter, half an hour ago, without breaking the seal." Helen did not answer at once, and when she looked up, for the first time in their lives her cousin read uncertainty in her eyes. His own face grew dark and stern. "Ah, Helen, it cannot have come to this, yet--that you doubt me when I state a simple fact." Her cheek had paled within the last few seconds, but it crimsoned now for very shame. "No, no, Alan," she said impetuously, "I don't doubt you. I never do, when I am myself; but sometimes I feel so changed--so wicked----" Wyverne would not let her go on; but the kiss which closed her lips carried scarcely more of caress than did his voice, as he answered what she meant to say.