"It was just at this time that the devil--to speak plainly, as I told you I was going to--put the idea of poor Mr. Ponsonby into my head. An engaged girl is always excused from everything else. My lover was not here to take up my time, and as I could postpone my wedding indefinitely whenever I pleased, my preparations need not be hurried. I dropped society and all the hateful going out, and had delicious evenings at home with papa when I was supposed to be writing my long letters to Australia. I thought I could drop it whenever I liked. I did not know what I was doing." "You? Perhaps not!" exclaimed Arend, with an exasperating air of superior age; "but your father and mother--what in the name of common sense were they thinking about to allow all this?" "Oh, you must not think they liked it; they didn't. To tell you all the truth, I don't think they half-understood it at first. I did not tell them until I had dropped a hint of it elsewhere, and I suppose they thought I had only given a vague glimpse of a possible future lover somewhere in the distance. Poor dears! things have changed since they were young, and they don't realise that if a man speaks to a girl it is in the newspapers the next day. I had not known what I was doing. I really have not told as many lies as you might think. Full half that you have heard about Mr. Ponsonby never came from me at all. You don't know how reports can grow, especially when Ada Thorne has the lead in them. Not that she exactly invents things, but a hint from me, and some I never meant, would come back all clothed in circumstance. I could not wear my old pink sash to save my others without hearing that that tea-rose tint was Mr. Ponsonby's favourite colour. Ponsonby grew out of my hands as this went on; and really the more he outgrew me the better I liked him, and indeed I ended by being rather in love with him. He had to have so many misfortunes, too, and that was a link between us." "But," said her hearer, suddenly, "did not Prescott Avery meet him at Melbourne?" "Oh, if you knew Prescott, you would know that he meets everybody. If it had been a Mr. Percival of Java, instead of Ponsonby of Australia, he would have remembered him or something about him. Still, that was a dreadful moment. I felt like Frankenstein when his creature stalks out alive. Poor Mr. Ponsonby! I shall send him his _coup-de-grace_ by the next Australian mail. People will say that I did it in the hope of catching you, and have failed. Let them--I deserve it. And now, Mr. Van Voorst, please to go. I have humiliated myself before you enough. I said I would tell you the truth, and you have heard it all. If you must despise me, have pity and don't show it." Lily's voice, so clear at first, had grown hoarse, and her cheeks were burning in a way that caused her physical pain. She rose to her feet and stood leaning on the back of her chair and looking at the floor.