"Yes, Miss," answered Susan abstractedly. And for a few moments she tried to hold her peace. But it was no use. A sudden torrent of warm words gushed forth and swept all restraint away. "Oh, Miss Gertrude!" she cried, "I can’t help saying it! I can’t! It isn’t me, Miss, Lord Ruddington ought to be coming after. It’s you, Miss Gertrude, it’s you!" I was struck dumb. "Yes, it’s you, Miss, it ought to be," Susan went on. "When I think of what he says in his letter, Miss--how he couldn’t go making love to Miss Langley--I could die for shame. I ought to have cut off my hand before I showed you such a thing, Miss." "Susan," I said, "you mustn’t talk to me like this. You did quite right to show me his letter. It isn’t your fault that Lord Ruddington wrote things in his letter which it would have been better taste to leave out." "No, Miss, I know," broke in Susan. "But oh, Miss Gertrude, I’m so miserable! I do so wish he hadn’t never seen me. If I don’t get married to him, I shall be miserable because I’ve thrown away all that money, and living in a grand house, and being Your Ladyship. And if I do get married to him, I shall be miserable because ... because it isn’t natural, Miss! Oh, Miss Gertrude, how lovely it would have been if he’d liked you instead of me! Then you would have got married and gone to live at the Towers, and we would have come with you, Miss, and we’d have been so happy!" I noticed Susan’s "we." But it was not a time for re-catechizing her about Gibson. I cut her short peremptorily. "Susan," I said, "be so good as to stop. You are taking a great liberty. If Lord Ruddington has so far forgotten himself as to drag my name into his affairs, that’s no excuse for you doing the same. I dislike it most strongly." "Yes, Miss," said obedient Susan. "But," she added wistfully, speaking more to herself than to me, "it would have been lovely!" "Am I to take it, Susan," I demanded abruptly, "that you’ve finally decided not to accept Lord Ruddington?" She blushed; paled; blushed again. But she did not answer. "Because," I added, "if you are still thinking it over, you’d better not talk of it, even to me. Lord Ruddington won’t expect you to write before Saturday. I’ve given you all the help and advice I can, but I don’t want to influence you either one way or the other. Work it out in your own mind." Susan promised to try. As she was going out, something else occurred to me, and I called her back. "Susan," I said kindly, "I don’t wish to refer to it again, but what you have said about myself and Lord Ruddington reminds me of one little point." "Yes, Miss," said Susan. "His portrait. One day I went into your room for the scissors. I saw you had put Lord Ruddington’s portrait in the same frame as mine." "Yes, Miss. They went together beautiful." "I shall be much obliged, Susan, if they don’t go together any longer." Susan shed a tear. But she is going to obey.