She was not sorry that matters had ended in this way, although she felt it to be illogical. With his kisses upon her mouth, with the pressure of his arm enfolding her, it was almost impossible for her to maintain, in his presence, a doubt of him. It was when he had gone that all the facts which he had ignored came back to her with torturing insistence, and that she blamed herself for not having refused to be reconciled to him until she had ascertained the truth or untruth of a report that had reached her ears. With a truer lover she might have gone unsatisfied to her dying day. A faithful-hearted man might never have perceived where she was hurt; he would not have been astute enough to discover that he might heal the wound by a few timely words of explanation. Oliver, keenly alive to his own interests, reopened the subject a few days later of his own accord. They had completely made up their quarrel--to all outward appearance, at any rate--and were sitting together one afternoon in Ethel's obnoxious drawing-room. They had been laughing together at some funny story of Ethel's associates at the theatre, and to the laughter had succeeded a silence, during which Oliver possessed himself of the girl's hand and carried it gently to his lips. "Ethel," he said, softly, "what made you so angry with me the other day?" "Your bad behavior, I suppose!" she said, trying to treat the matter in her usual lively fashion. "But what _was_ my misbehavior? Did it consist in going so often to the Brookes'?" "Oh, what does it matter?" exclaimed Ethel, petulantly. "Didn't we agree to forgive and forget? If we didn't, we ought to have done. I don't want to look back." "But you are doing an injustice to me. Ethel, I dare not say to you that I _insist_ on knowing what it was. But I very strongly _wish_ that you would tell me--so that I might at least try to set your mind at rest." "Well," said Ethel, quickly, "if you _must_ know--it was only a bit of gossip--servants gossip. I know all that can be said respecting the foolishness of listening to gossip from such a source--but I can't help it. One of the maids at Mr. Brooke's----" "Sarah?" asked Oliver, with interest. "Sarah never liked me." "Who, it was not Sarah.--it was that maid of Lesley's--Kingston her name is, I believe--who said to one of our servants one day that you went there a great deal oftener than she would like, if she were in my place. There! I have made a full confession. It was a petty spiteful bit of gossip, of course, and I ought not to have listened to it--but then it seemed so natural--and I thought it might be true!" "What seemed natural?" said Oliver, who, against his will, was looking very black. "Why, that you should like Lesley; she is the sweetest girl I ever came across." In his heart Oliver echoed that opinion, but he felt morally bound to deny it. "You say so only because you have never seen yourself! My darling, how could you accuse me merely on servants' evidence!"