"I see," he said; "but still, some day perhaps I may be able to tell you our melancholy little romance. We have been engaged five years, Miss Wentworth!" with a smile that was sad enough. "But who told you that Eva was my sister? Who warned you not to speak of her?" he added, with another flash of the strange, on the surface unreasonable, suspicion he had already felt more than once. Imogen tried to collect her bewildered faculties. "Trixie, I think," she said; "and--and--I am not sure, but I think Miss Forsyth said something of the same to mamma." The lines on Major Winchester's face hardened. "They are both so likely to consider my feelings tenderly!" he said sarcastically. "No," said Imogen, bluntly, not detecting the satire. "I think they both almost hate you." The quiet, matter-of-fact tone in which she spoke startled him. "Hate," uttered in cold blood, is an ugly word. But a new misgiving was now making its way to his mind, and for the moment, in his intense anxiety to save Imogen further suffering, he put aside the question of the present terrible complication being more than accident. "Your mother?" he said, with quick inquiry. "Do you mean--" He hesitated. It was _so_ difficult to express what he wanted to know. "She--she has not seen this?" and again he touched the fatal letter. "Yes," said Imogen, simply. "She was with me when I got it. Indeed, she gave it me," and as the remembrance of that morning--when she had wakened so happily--came back to her, it was very, very hard work to force down her tears; "and so, naturally, I showed it her, before I noticed the postscript. And she has thought--oh!" "Never mind what she has thought," he said hastily. "If only--you don't think she has told any one else?" "I don't know; not exactly. She promised she wouldn't; but Miss Forsyth is so cunning, and mamsey is so--so simple," said the girl. Major Winchester pulled himself together. "Miss Wentworth," he said, "I must stop farther mischief, at once: they must not and shall not torture you. But will you trust me still? I shall hurry on, and take measures to put your mother on her guard." "You--you won't tell any one--not Florence, about me--about this morning?" said Imogen, piteously. "No, no, of course not. Come on quietly to the house in half an hour or so, and I think I shall be able to manage it. Now, my poor dear child-- don't be angry with me for calling you so this once--good-bye in the meantime." "Good-bye," she said. "If you don't mind, I wish you would count it good-bye for always." He glanced at her; she did not mean it, but in these few words was the bitterest reproach she could have expressed. Again the dull pallor crept over his face for an instant. "Perhaps you are right. God bless you!" and he hurried away.