“I knew there was something queer about her all the time, but I never suspected that. Poor little Dot; how I must have hurt her feelings with my foolish talk of Charlie, if she really is his widow, and I know she is, for I remember now how interested she was in the Leightons, and how many questions she asked me about Roy and his mother; and then that box of jet. I’m sure of it,—perfectly sure; but, Dotty, if I can ferret out a secret, I can keep one too: and if you don’t want Roy to know where you are, he never shall from me.” Maude wrote to Edna that night, and told her everything about the Leightons which she thought would interest her, and then with feverish impatience waited for her summer’s vacation, when she meant to go again to Rocky Point, and satisfy herself. Roy did not renew the conversation Maude had interrupted, but when in the spring he decided upon his trip to Europe, he half made up his mind to take Georgie Burton with him. He knew it would please his mother, and from all that had passed between himself and the lady he felt that he was in some sort bound to make her his wife; and why wait any longer? She was at Oakwood now. City air did not agree with her as formerly; she felt tired all the time, she told her aunt, who was ever ready to gratify her darling’s slightest whim, consented to leave New York at least a month earlier than usual, but never dreamed that the real cause of Georgie’s pretended weariness was to be found in the pleasant little house in Jersey City, where Jack Heyford was settling himself. Although constantly assuring herself that her fears were groundless, Georgie could not shake off the nervous dread that, by Jack’s presence in New York, the black page of her life might somehow come to light. She went over to Jersey several times, for she could not keep away; but she took the Hoboken Ferry, and then came in the street car to the corner near which Jack lived, thinking thus to avoid meeting any one who knew her, and would wonder what she was doing in Jersey City. Still it was not so much through herself as through Jack that she dreaded recognition; and until he was fairly settled and at work, and swallowed up in the great Babel, it was better for her to be away; and so she went to Oakwood, and saw Roy every day, and was so soft, and sweet, and pious, and interesting in her new _rôle_ of half-invalid, that Roy made up his mind, and started one morning to settle the important question.