"Look," she said, holding out her wrist. "What?" asked he. "That little scar. You did that." "I did?" "Yes; you clutched me by the wrists." He felt utterly miserable, in spite of having found her again, and he covered the line of the scar with little kisses. She laughed quietly. "It is a bracelet!" she said lightly. V. Presently, however, he started up. "Eva," he began, suddenly recollecting himself, "How--why--?" "What is it?" she said, laughing, but a little exhausted after her strange fear of the fancied thunder. "Those letters. Why did William?--what could they matter to William? Not mere curiosity to see what was in them?" "He would not have snatched that last one so roughly from Kate, if that had been all. No, no--" "Then you think he had some interest?" "I do." "But what? Why should he care whether I wrote to you or no?" "Perhaps he was acting for--" "Well?" "For some one else." "But for whom? What concern could my letters be of anybody's. What advantage could it be to any one to hinder your getting them?" She sat up and looked at him for some time without speaking, dreading the question she must ask. "Can you really think of no one?" she said. "No." "Did no one know that you had written?" "No one but Bertie." "Ah! Only Bertie," said she, with emphasis. "But Bertie--no! Surely?" he asked her, indignant at so preposterous a suspicion. "Perhaps," she whispered, almost inaudibly. "Perhaps Bertie." "Eva! Impossible. Why? How?" She sank back into her former attitude, her head on his breast, trembling still from the impression of the thunder she had heard. And she went on: "I know nothing; I only think. I have thought it over day after day for two years; and I have begun to find a great deal that seems mysterious in what had never before been puzzling, but, indeed, sympathetic to me--in Bertie. You know we often used to talk together, and sometimes alone. You were a little jealous sometimes, but you had not the smallest reason for it, for there never was any thing to make you so; we were like a brother and sister. We often talked of you.--Well, afterwards I remembered those talks, and it struck me that Bertie--" "Yes? That Bertie--" "That he did not speak of you as a true friend should. I am not sure. While he was talking it never occurred to me, for Bertie had a tone, and a way of saying things. I always fancied then that he meant well by us both, and that he really cared for us, but that he was afraid of something happening--some evil, some catastrophe, if we were married, He seemed to think that we ought not to marry. When afterwards I thought over what he had said that was always the impression. He really seemed to think that we--that we ought never to be married."