But Bertie was not thinking of Captain Hughes. He was looking intently at me with that wavering color in his cheeks and an eager question in his eyes. When I spoke, my words recalled him a little, and he put on a grave look, and murmured something about the “poor fellow!” or “brave fellow!” I could not tell which--then looked at me again, eager, with a question hovering on his lips. The question of all others which I was resolute not to answer. So I gathered up my work remorselessly, put it away in my work-table, jingled my keys, told him I would see if the newspaper had come yet, and left the room without looking round. He might find that out at Alice’s own hands if he wished it--he should not receive any clandestine information from me. CHAPTER XXIII. The first visit which Bertie was able to make was to the cottage--to see Mrs. Harley, as he said, gravely--but I fear he did not get a very satisfactory reception. He told me he thought Alice greatly changed when he returned; but he was not communicative on the subject, and had a decided inclination to go back again. Perhaps the wavering, pleasant, half-conscious sentiment, and tender youthful reminiscence, with which Bertie came home, was the better of a little opposition to warm it into independent life; and Alice had reason enough for a double share of perversity and caprice, though Bertie knew nothing of that. She had betrayed herself to me, and, for a moment, to Maurice. She thought, no doubt, that everybody had suspected that secret of hers--and with unconscious self-importance, that it was whispered throughout the country with secret smiles over all her former unmarried-woman superiority to vulgar love-affairs. Her credit was consequently very deeply involved--she would not have smiled upon Bertie Nugent now had it been to save his life.