“Shall I pack your portmanteau, Tom?” asked she. It was a task that always fell to her lot. “No; Nicholas can do it,--any one can do it,” said he, as he mumbled with an unlit cigar between his teeth. “You used to say I always did it best, Tom,--that I never forgot anything,” said she, caressingly. “Perhaps I did,--perhaps I thought so. Look here, Lucy,” said he, as though by an immense effort he had got strength to say what he wanted, “I am half vexed with you, if not more than half.” “Vexed with me, Tom,--vexed with _me!_ and for what?” “I don't think that you need ask. I am inclined to believe that you know perfectly well what I mean, and what I would much rather not say, if you will only let me.” “I do not,” said she, slowly and deliberately. “Do you mean to say, Lucy,” said he, and his manner was almost stern as he spoke, “that you have no secrets from me, that you are as frank and outspoken with me today as you were three months ago?” “I do say so.” “Then what's the meaning of this letter?” cried he, as, carried away by a burst of passion, he overstepped all the prudential reserve he had sworn to himself to regard. “What does this mean?” “I know nothing of that letter, nor what it contains,” said she, blushing till her very brow became crimson. “I don't suppose you do, for though it is addressed to you, the seal is unbroken; but you know whose handwriting it's in, and you know that you have had others from the same quarter.” “I believe the writing is Mr. Trafford's,” said she, as a deathlike paleness spread over her face, “because he himself once asked me to read a letter from him in the same handwriting.” “Which you did?” “No; I refused. I handed the letter back to him unopened, and said that, as I certainly should not write to him without my father's knowledge and permission, I would not read a letter from him without the same.” “And what was the epistle, then, that the vicar's housekeeper handed him from you?” “That same letter I have spoken of. He left it on my table, insisting and believing that on second thoughts I would read it. He thought so because it was not to me, though addressed to me, but the copy of a letter he had written to his mother, about me certainly.” Here she blushed deeply again. “As I continued, however, of the same mind, determined not to see what the letter contained, I re-enclosed it and gave it to Mrs. Brennan to hand to him.” “And all this you kept a secret from me?” “It was not my secret. It was his. It was his till such time as he could speak of it to my father, and this he told me had not yet come.” “Why not?” “I never asked him that. I do not think, Tom,” said she, with much emotion, “it was such a question as you would have had me ask.”