Like a dream, the hints she had heard returned to Sophy’s memory. “Could it have been true?” she asked herself, and again she glanced at her companion. He was walking along quietly, his eyes fixed on the ground. In another moment he spoke. “And what more news have you for me, Miss Berwick?” he said lightly. “Let me see, we have done a good deal of business in the last few minutes. Assisted at three prospective marriages, and made our comments thereupon. The last we discussed seems to me the least satisfactory. That poor girl, Miss Freer, I pity her if she is forced into a mercenary marriage.” “Yes,” replied Sophy, “I suppose she is to be pitied. “But provided she does not care for anyone else, she will get along well enough with her husband, I dare say. Particularly if he is so rich. It is much easier to keep good friends when there is plenty of money.” “Do you think so?” said Ralph, indifferently. How the girl’s words stung him! “Provided she cares for no one else.” But he answered so carelessly and naturally that the Sophy was quite deceived, and dismissed as groundless the idea that had occurred to her. They walked on together some little distance; Ralph skilfully drawing her out, but to no purpose. She had evidently told him, and apparently without exaggeration, all she knew on the subject. He went home. What he thought and felt and suffered, those who have marvelled at themselves for living through similar bitterness and disappointment, will know without my attempting the impossible task of describing it. Those, on the other hand, who have not hitherto passed through such anguish, may yet have to bear it. And to many, even the feeble words I might vainly employ, would appear exaggerated and unnatural. The result of that day’s meeting with Sophy Berwick was the following letter to Mrs. Archer, containing an enclosure for Miss Freer. He wrote both letters at once. He could not rest till he had done so; though, by the rule of contrary again, he found when they were written, that he had missed the mail by two or three days only. So they did not go till the following month. And it was July ere Cissy received them, additional delay resulting from their going round by the headquarters of Colonel Archer’s regiment in the first place; the only address which Ralph felt confidence in after his late disastrous experience. This was what he wrote to Cissy:— “CHATEAU MORNIER “VEVEY “JUNE 3rd, 18— “MY DEAR MRS. ARCHER,