Colonel Schuyler was not much given to talking at any time, and he surely had no desire to speak to his _fiancée_ of her dead love. Could he have had his choice in the matter there should have been no dead love between himself and Edith, but when he reflected that he could not offer her his first affection, for that was buried in Emily’s grave, he felt that it was not for him to object to this poor, unknown youth who had been obliging enough to die and leave Edith free. A few times he walked up and down the room, then stopping suddenly before the anxious woman, he said, “Your daughter once hinted to me that there was something she must tell me, and as I knew her life must have been pure and innocent as a babe’s, I supposed it was a matter of this kind, and am prepared to overlook it, though of course I would rather have been the first to move her maiden heart. I will write her a few lines if you will wait here, and this afternoon or evening I shall see her.” He bowed himself from the room, leaving Mrs. Barrett in a state of fearful suspense as to what he might write to Edith, and whether her wicked duplicity would at once be discovered. In her desire for Edith’s advancement she was willing to do anything, and the slight put upon herself was nothing to her now. She would rather have gone with Edith to her beautiful home if she could, but as she could not she accepted the condition, and was just as eager for Edith to accept the colonel as if she too were to share in the greatness. With Edith she felt almost certain that a full confession of the past would at once end everything, for Colonel Schuyler would hardly marry the widow of one of his workmen, and she resolved that he should not know it, at least not in time to prevent the marriage. With Edith his wife he could not help himself, and would make the best of it, if by chance it came to his knowledge, she reasoned, and when she started for Oakwood with Edith’s letter it was with no intention of giving it to him. She knew just what she would say to him, and she said it, and then waited the result. Fifteen minutes went by and then he came back to her, and, handing her a note, said, “This is my message to Miss Lyle. I shall see her this evening and arrange our plans.” Then he meant to go on with it, and Mrs. Barrett could almost have fallen at his feet and thanked him for raising her daughter to the position she had sinned so greatly to secure for her, but the colonel’s proud, cold manner kept her quiet, and she only said, as she took the note: “Thank you, sir; and please remember not to allude to the past, when you see her. She wished that particularly,—it excites her so much.” “I shall be careful on that point,” he said, and with another bow he dismissed her from the room, wondering why he breathed so much freer with that woman gone, and what it was about her which affected him so unpleasantly.