"There isn't really anybody; and besides I've insulted him so that he never could help hating me. No, there isn't anybody, Cousin Anna; and there never will be. I know I should despise him if he wasn't angry; and besides," she added with the air of suddenly recollecting herself, "I hate him for what he said." "That is evident," the other assented smilingly. "I could see at once that you hated him. But who is it?" "Why, there isn't anybody, I tell you. Of course I thought about him after he saved my life, but"-- "Oh," interrupted Mrs. Frostwinch. "Then it is Mr. Wynne. But I thought"-- "He isn't a priest any more," Berenice struck in, replying to the unspoken doubt as if it had been in her own mind. "I heard yesterday that he has left the Clergy House for good, and is staying with Mrs. Staggchase." "Have you seen him lately?" "He overtook me on the street yesterday." Mrs. Frostwinch put out her hand with a loving gesture. "Bee," said she tenderly, "I want you to be happy. You've been like a daughter to me ever since your mother died, and I've thought of you almost as if you were my own child. If this is the man to make you happy"-- But Bee stooped forward and stopped the words with kisses. "I can't talk of him," she said, "and he will never be anything to me. He is angry, and he has a right to be. He"-- The entrance of the nurse interrupted them, and Berenice made haste to get away before there was opportunity for further question. In her anxiety to know something more of Mr. Wynne, Mrs. Frostwinch sent for Mrs. Staggchase, who came in the next day. Mrs. Staggchase found her friend weak and frightfully changed. The high-bred face was haggard, the nostrils thin, while beneath the eyes were heavy purple shadows. A ghost of the old smile lighted her face, making it more ghastly yet, like the gleaming of a candle through a death-mask. The hand extended to the visitor was so transparent that it might almost have belonged to a spirit. "My dear Anna," Mrs. Staggchase exclaimed, "I hadn't an idea"-- "That I was so near dying, my dear," interrupted the other. "I am worse than that, I am dead, really; but it doesn't matter. I want to talk to you about Bee." "About Bee?" echoed the other, seating herself beside the bed. "What about her?" "I should have said that I want to ask you about Mr. Wynne. Do you know anything about his relations to her?" "The only relation that he has is that of a perfectly desperate adorer. He worships the ground she walks on, but he doesn't cherish anything that could be decently called hope." "Then he does care for her?"