'It wouldn't be very safe for Charteris to trust me,' said Josephine, with a hard, metallic laugh. 'I never was to be trusted. I know what you have come for, Hazel, and I know who has brought you; it's Annabella; but it's no use. You may give up the job. I know all you want to say, and I'm not going to have you say it; and you have said it, besides. Look here. A marriage isn't a real marriage when people don't care for each other. Do you think a woman is bound by a few words said over her by a man in a black silk gown? by an incantation, like the savages? It would make me downright wicked to go on living with John Charteris; you ought to want to save me from that. I am always a great deal better—more _religious_—when I am happy, than when I am miserable. It always rouses up all there is bad in me, to try to make me do something I don't want to do. I can't imagine how you get along with Dane Rollo; but that is you affair; this is mine. Where is Annabella?' Before Hazel could stop her, she had flown across the hall to the room on the other side, whence she fetched back her sister. The conversation was not renewed. In ignorance of what fruit the interview might have borne, or what its results might be, Annabella dared not touch the matter; and Josephine gave her no chance. She kept up a rattling fire of nonsense, until the two ladies were forced to leave her. The day was darkening fast now towards the early evening. Fine snow was falling thick, and the wind came in gusts. There was no time to be lost in getting home. Yet Annabella paused at the very coach door and looked at Hazel. 'Have you done anything?' she asked anxiously. At the instant a gentleman ran against them with an umbrella, and lifting the same suddenly to make his excuses, a very familiar figure was revealed to them. Stuart Nightingale himself. A flash of disagreeable expression crossed his face for that one second of surprise, then he had regained his usual manner. 'Quel plaisir!' he cried, bowing low. 'Two such ladies, in the snow, here! at Fort Washington! The charms of the surprise is manifold. What has procured it? mercy, or vanity? One or the other it must be. A sick friend?—or a French mantua-maker? But you are never going to drive back to New York in this awful storm?' Annabella drew herself up and made no answer. Wych Hazel looked at the snow. 'Good evening,' she said. 'The storm is not much.'