The next morning I was summoned to Beardsley's "study" (so called probably from the total absence of either book or newspaper), and found himself and his wife awaiting me, and also a Doctor Scheffer, whom I had previously noticed among the guests--a gaunt, hectic young man, apparently on the high road to death, the victim of an incurable consumption. "I asked William Scheffer to meet us here," said Mr. Beardsley, "as Louisa Waring was an inmate of his father's house at the time of the occurrence. She and William were children and playmates together. I believe I am right, William. You knew all the circumstances of that terrible night?" The young man's heavy face changed painfully. "Yes; as much as was known to any one but Louisa, and--the guilty man, whoever he was. But why are you dragging out that wretched affair?" turning angrily on Mrs. Beardsley. "Surely any friend of Miss Waring's would try to bury the past for her!" "No," said the lady calmly. "It has been buried quite too long, in my opinion; for she has carried her burden for six years. It is time now that we should try to lift it for her. You are sitting in a draught, William. Sit on this sofa." Scheffer, coughing frightfully, and complaining with all the testiness of a long-humored invalid, was disposed of at last, and Beardsley began: "The story is briefly this. Louisa, before her father's death, was engaged to be married to Colonel Paul Merrick (Merricks of Clarke county, you know). The wedding was postponed for a year when General Waring died, and Louisa went to her uncle's--your father, William--to live during that time. When the year was over, every preparation was made for the marriage: invitations were sent to all the kinsfolk on both sides (and that included three or four counties on a rough guess), and we--the immediate family--were assembled at Major Scheffer's preparing for the grand event, when----" Beardsley became now excessively hot and flurried, and getting up, thumped heavily up and down the room. "After all, there is nothing to tell. Why should we bring in a famous lawyer to sit in judgment on her as if the girl were a criminal? She only did, Floyd, what women have done since the beginning--changed her mind without reason. Paul Merrick was as clever and lovable a young fellow as you would find in the State, and Louisa was faithful to him--she's faithful to him yet; but on the night before the wedding she refused to marry him, and has persisted in the refusal ever since, without assigning a cause." "Is that all of the story?" I asked. Beardsley was silent. "No," said his wife gently; "that is not all. I thought McCormack's courage would fail before he gave you the facts. I shall try and tell you----" "Only the facts, if you please, without any inferences or opinions of others."