“I am sure,” said Georgie, a little piteously. “I am sure he is good at heart.” “Of course he is,” said the colonel. “But he has altered very much, in many respects. And Jennie, my dear, I have discovered that the trouble was the one you hinted at, in the beginning. There was a woman in the case. A woman who treated him shamefully.” “She must have been very heartless,” said Georgie. “Poor Hector!” The colonel warmed up. “She was shamefully heartless, she was disgracefully, unnaturally heartless! Such cold-blooded, selfish cruelty would have been unnatural in a mature woman, and she was nothing more than a school-girl, a mere child. I congratulate myself that I did not learn her name. The man who told me the story had not heard it. If I knew it, and should ever chance to meet her, by George!” with virtuous indignation, “I don’t see how a man of honor could remain in the same room with such a woman.” And then he poured out what he had heard of the story, and an unpleasant enough sound it had, when related with all the additional coloring confidential report had given it. It was bad enough to begin with, but it was worse for having passed through the hands of the men who had gathered it together, by scraps, and odds, and ends, and joined it as they thought best. “And the worst of it is,” ended Colonel Esmond, “that he has not lived it down, as he fancies he has done. At least there are those who think so. It is said the girl is here in town now, and though they are not friends, Anstruthers cannot keep away from her altogether, and is always most savage and reckless when he has seen her.” “Poor fellow!” said Georgie, in a low, quiet voice. “Poor Hector!” But she did not look up at any one, as she spoke. Indeed she had not looked up, even once, during the time in which this unpleasant story had been told. Having heard it, she confronted it very sensibly. When, indeed, was she not sweet and sensible? While she listened, a hundred past incidents rushed back upon her. She remembered things she had heard Hector say, and things she had seen him do; she remembered certain restless moods of his, certain desperate whims and fancies, and she began to comprehend what their meaning was. Her vague fancies of his unhappiness found a firm foundation. He was wretched, and broken in faith, because this cruel girl had robbed him of his honest belief in love, and truth, and goodness. Ah, poor Hector! She did not say very much while the colonel and Mrs. Esmond discussed the matter, but she was thinking very deeply, and when she bade them good night, and went up to her room, there was a sad sort of thoughtfulness in her face. She did not begin to undress at once, but sat down by her toilet table, and rested her fresh cheek on her hand. “I wonder who it was?” she said, softly. “Who could it be? Whom did he know when he was three-and-twenty?”