"Mistake!" he cried, with a savage laugh. "Don't I tell you--I have just come from there? Has not old Wilton hid me keep silence? And I came babbling it all to you." "Stop!" said Jenny thoughtfully; "Kate could not do such a thing. When was it?" "Who can tell?--late last night--early this morning. What does it matter?" "It is not true," cried Jenny, with her eyes flashing. "How dare you, who were ready to go down on your knees and worship her, utter such a cruel calumny." "Very well," he cried bitterly; "then it is not true; I have not been there this morning, and have not looked in their empty rooms. Tell me I am a fool and a madman, and you will be very near the truth." "I don't care," cried Jenny angrily; "and it's cruel--almost blasphemous of you to say such a thing about that poor sweet girl whom I had already grown to love. She elope with her cousin--run away like a silly girl in a romance! It is impossible." "Yes, impassible," he said mockingly, as he writhed in his despair and agony. "Pierce, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. There! I can only talk to you in a commonplace way, though all the time I am longing for words full of scorn and contempt with which to crush you. No, I'm not, my poor boy, because I can see how _you_ are suffering. Oh, Pierce! Pierce!" she continued, sobbing as she threw her arms about his neck; "how can you torture yourself so by thinking such a thing of her?" "Good little girl," he said tenderly, moved as he was by her display of affection. "I shall begin to respect myself again now I find that my bright, clever little sister could be as much deceived as I." "I have not been deceived in her. She is all that is beautiful, and good, and true. Of course, I believe in her, and so do you at heart, only you are half mad now, and deceived." "Yes, half mad, and deceived!" "Yes. There is something behind all this--I know," cried Jenny, wildly. "They have persecuted her so, and encouraged that wretched boy to pay her attentions, till in despair she has run away to take refuge with some other friends." "With Claud Wilton!" said Pierce, bitterly. "Silence, sir! No. Women are not such weak double-faced creatures as you think. No, it is as I say; and oh! Pierce, dear, he was out late last night, and when he got back found her going away and followed her." "Fiction--imagination," he said bitterly. "You are inventing all this to try and comfort me, little woman, but your woven basket will not hold water. It leaks at the very beginning. How could you know that he was out late last night?" Jenny's cheeks were scarlet, and she turned away her face. "There, you see, you are beaten at once, Jenny, and that I have some reason for what I have said about women; but there are exceptions to every rule, and my little sister is one of them. I did not include her among the weak ones."