"No--no," said Catharine, hurriedly, drawing back. "But if you would like to speak to Mary--she will be here directly." "No!"--he said, after a moment, recovering his composure--"I couldn't! But--will you?" "If you wish it." Then she added, "She will of course never ask a question; it will be her business to know nothing of the matter--in itself. But she will be able to show you her confidence, and to feel that we have treated her as a woman--not a child."' Meynell drew a deep breath. He took Catharine's hand and pressed it. She felt with a thrill--which was half bitterness--that it was already a son's look he turned upon her. "You--you have guessed me?" he said, almost inaudibly. "I see there is a great friendship between you." "_Friendship!_" Then he restrained himself sharply. "But I ought not to speak of it--to intrude myself and my affairs on her notice at all at this moment...." He looked at his companion almost sternly. "Is it not clear that I ought not? I meant to have brought her a book to-day. I have not brought it. I have been even glad--thankful--to think you were going away, although--" But again he checked the personal note. "The truth is I could not endure that through me--through anything connected with me--she might be driven upon facts and sorrows--ugly facts that would distress her, and sorrows for which she is too young. It seemed to me indeed I might not be able to help it. But at the same time it was clear to me, to-day, that at such a time--feeling as I do--I ought not in the smallest degree to presume upon her--and your--kindness to me. Above all"--his voice shook--"I could not come forward--I could not speak to her--as at another time I might have spoken. I could not run the smallest risk--of her name being coupled with mine--when my character was being seriously called in question. It would not have been right for her; it would not have been seemly for myself. So what was there--but silence? And yet I felt--that through this silence--we should somehow trust each other!" He paused a moment, looking down upon his companion. Catharine was sitting by the fire near a small table on which her elbow rested, her face propped on her hand. There was something in the ascetic refinement, the grave sweetness of her aspect, that played upon him with a tonic and consoling force. He remembered the frozen reception she had given him at their first meeting; and the melting of her heart toward him seemed a wonderful thing. And then came the delicious thought--"Would she so treat him, unless Mary--_Mary_!--"