“You have a secret, which you are guarding sedulously from the world, but, Georgie, just so sure as you breathe a word to any one against Edna, or tell that she is not Miss Overton, or try, in any way, to prejudice either Roy or his mother, or anybody against her, just so sure people shall know that little passage in your life which you have hitherto succeeded in keeping from them. On the other hand, if you respect Edna’s secret, yours too shall be respected, as it has been heretofore. Do you acquiesce in this? Is it a bargain between us?” There was no need for Georgie to answer; her white, terrified face, from which her old assurance and haughtiness had fled, was a sufficient reply; and she sat for a moment staring at her companion in utter bewilderment. Then, with a tremendous effort, she recovered in part her composure, and said: “I do not know what right you have thus to threaten me, or what you may have heard to my disadvantage from my enemies. I am not afraid of _you_, Maude, or of what you can do to harm me. Don’t think I am, I beg; but if it’s any favor to _you_ or Jack, for I know he has something to do with it, I will let the girl remain in peace at Leighton, only devoutly hoping that the childish face which lured poor Charlie Churchill to his death will not also be the ruin of my brother, whose _penchant_ in that direction I very strongly suspect.” “Spare your suspicions there,” Maude said, and her voice was gentler now. She had conquered Georgie wholly, and she began to feel a kind of pity for the proud woman who had been so terribly humbled, and who hereafter would inevitably stand somewhat in fear of her. “Georgie,” she continued, “I have no wish to quarrel with you. I loved Edna Churchill before I knew who she was. You will like her, too, when you know her better, but she will never be your sister. Don’t fear for that, though Jack _did_ love her once, and asked her to be his wife, up at Rocky Point last summer, and she refused him; and now the great, kind-hearted fellow has come to me to be consoled, and, Georgie, well,—I may as well tell you, for he said I might,—I am to be your sister some day, and I do not want to begin by quarrelling with you; I mean to make Jack a good wife and be a mother to little Annie; he told me about her, and I almost cried with thinking of the poor creature, sitting all day in her chair or lying in her crib so lonely, talking sometimes to herself, he said, and sometimes to you, for company, and again praying that Jesus will make her patient to bear the pain in her back and hip, which is dreadful at times. Yes, I mean to be kind to her, even if I worry Jack’s life out of him. Speak to me, Georgie, and say if you are glad I am to be your sister?”