"Osseous matter, osseous matter," I murmured mechanically, and it sounded so like an echo of her words that I am sure she thought me going mad. Should I throw myself at her feet and tell her all? If she would only trample upon me and my feelings together, it would be a luxury compared to the agony of self-control I was inflicting upon myself. If I could only pour myself out in a torrent of passionate expression, and wind up with a paroxysm of tears, she was welcome to treat me as a raving lunatic, but I should be much less likely to become one. But how, knowing what I did, could I face Grandon afterwards? Before that fatal conversation with Lady Broadhem, I should have had the satisfaction of hearing my fate from Lady Ursula herself, and I know that she would have treated me so tenderly that rejection would have been a thousand times preferable to this. She would have known then the intensity of my affection, she would have heard from my own lips the burning words with which I would have pleaded my cause, and, whatever might have been the result, would have pitied and felt for me. Now, if I say nothing, and Lady Broadhem tells her when I am gone that she considers us engaged, what will Ursula think of me? Again, if Lady Broadhem thinks I am really going to do what my conscience urges, and sacrifice myself for Grandon, then, poor girl, she will be sacrificed to Chundango. Nothing but misery will come out of that double event: if I do what is right, it will bring misery; if I do what is wrong, it will bring misery too,--that is one consolation--it makes the straight and narrow path easier. The only difficulty is, I can't find it--and standing here with my hand on her chair, my head swimming, and Lady Ursula looking anxiously up at me, I am not likely to find it. "Lord Frank, do let me ring the bell and send for a glass of water," she said at last. "Thanks, no; the fact is, that letter I have lost causes me the greatest anxiety, and when I thought what the consequences might be of its going astray I felt a little faint for a moment."