“Proposed to Rena!” Irene exclaimed springing up and going towards the door, saying as she did so, “Come out with me, Tom, I cannot breathe in this close room.” They went out upon the piazza where the wind was blowing cool and where Irene could breathe more freely. Tom’s news had stunned her for a moment, but she would not let him see how she was hurt. “Tell me about it,” she said. “Why should he propose to Rena when he knew she was engaged to you?” Tom did not choose to enlighten her as to the real reason, and he answered: “That is rather queer, especially as he told me he was going to propose and that he loved her.” “Was he in his right mind?” Irene asked, and Tom replied: “He seemed to be.” Then for a time there was silence while Irene sat with her hands clasped and her heart beating in her throat with throbs which told how hard her ambitious hopes were dying. She was a woman of quick perception, and after she could speak she said: “Tom, Reginald Travers is a mercenary wretch. I know the conditions of the will, I saw the copy sent to Rena, and it is money he is after. He knew Rena would refuse him and that by her doing so he would get eighty thousand dollars. With me, if I had been the girl, he would have gotten the whole on the principle that what is the wife’s is the husband’s. I am fortunate to be rid of him.” Tom laughed to himself, wondering how she could be rid of what she never had, and still he pitied her, for he knew how she was writhing with humiliation and disappointment. She was very white and there was a drawn look about her mouth, and Tom noticed that she shivered as a stronger gust of wind than usual swept across the piazza. She was cold, she said at last, rising, and giving her hand to Tom: “I am glad you told me and I know now it was not I that he cared for, but what he might get with me. I shall go home to-morrow, wiser than when I came. Good-night.” She was gone before Tom could detain her, and a moment after was in her room sobbing so loudly that Rena heard her, and stepping out of bed came to her side, asking what was the matter. Irene never forgot the main chance. If she had won Rex, Rena’s friendship would not be as necessary to her, but she had lost him and Rena, must be retained. Very rapidly she repeated what Tom had told her. “It was horrible about that eye,—my eye,—and I can see it myself and always shall. He is not very bright, or he would have seen the joke,” she said; “but I did care for him and I thought he cared for me. I know better now, and there is nothing left me but you, Rena. You will not desert me. You will be the same after you are Tom’s wife that you always have been.” It is needless to say that Rena’s soft heart melted at once and she assured her cousin that her friendship would never fail. There was comfort in this, opening up visions of frequent visits to Newton and the material good which always came from intercourse with Rena. And Irene’s spirits began to rise.