Why she told it, it would be impossible to tell, except that she wished to approach nearer to the girl who had won her brother’s love, and that such a confidence was the most painful sacrifice it was in her power to make. It was a strange story of how she and her brother had studied together side by side for their degree; of how she had advanced even farther than he, till at length, finding she was outstripping him, in one magnificent burst of sacrifice she had thrown the whole thing up; but how the fascination of her work proved almost too much for her, till in desperation she left her brother altogether, and went to the Paris studios to study art. Here she paused awhile as if reluctant to speak further. “You don’t know,” she said, “what it was to have lived as I did, almost as a man among men. It was only we two—my brother and I—against the world, you know, and it’s a hard world. After I left him—I’m not going to tell you the whole story—there was a man who was a very fine fellow, an Englishman and an artist, and he fell in love with me before he quite knew—well, all the incidents of my life. Paris is rather a place for incidents, you know. He wanted to marry me. But, of course, I told him—and, I daresay, it wasn’t an ideal story. At any rate he told me he could not make me his wife, and I care far too much for him to be satisfied with anything else. So I went back to my brother, and I have been with him ever since. I help him with his cases, and, as his practice is rather large, and contains a good many poor people, I find enough to do. Are you horribly shocked, Miss Dallerton?” “Have you given up your art?” said Muriel. The other girl went to the window. She laughed nervously. “Art?” she said. “I never look at a picture if I can help it.” “And does your brother know?” “Everything; but it has made no difference.” “I wonder why you told me?” said Muriel thoughtfully. Cynthia smiled. “You look as if people were in the habit of telling you things. Besides—I don’t know—it seemed to me as if you ought to know the truth if we were to be friends.” “I hope we shall be,” said Muriel softly—“I hope very much we shall be.” “I think,” said Cynthia as she went to the door, “that if I had known you, it might have been different.”