This was how Charlie reasoned on the height of his one-and-twenty years. Charlie was the intolerable element in all this question. Aubrey cast a look at him, and forcibly closed his own lips to keep in something that was bursting forth. Bee defied him, as was natural, on the spot. “I will not have Charlie put in his opinion,” she cried. “He has nothing to do with me. Even if I obeyed papa, I certainly should not obey him.” “Let Aubrey say, himself,” said Mrs. Kingsward, “whether you ought to be told everything, Bee.” “It is cruel to ask me,” said Aubrey, speaking for the first time. “If Bee could know all--if you could know all, Mrs. Kingsward! But how could I tell you all? Part of this is true, and part is not true. I could speak to Colonel Kingsward more freely. I am going off to-night to London to see him. It will free you from embarrassment, and it will give me perhaps a chance. I did not want to put you to this trial. I am ready to put myself unreservedly in Colonel Kingsward’s hands.” “Then,” said Bee, hastily, “it seems I am of no sort of importance at all to anyone. I am told my engagement is broken off, and then I am told I am not to know why, and then----. Go, then, Aubrey, as that is your choice, and fight it out with papa, if you please.” She loosed her arm from his, with a slight impulse, pushing him away. “But just mind this--everybody,” she cried; “you may think little of Bee--but my engagement shall not be broken by anybody but me, and it shall not be kept on by anybody but me; and I will neither give it up nor will I hold to it, neither one nor the other, until I know why.” Then the judge and the defendant looked each other in the face. They were, as may be supposed, on opposite sides, but they were the only two to consult each other in this emergency. Aubrey responded by a movement of his head, by a slight throwing up of his hand, to the question in Mrs. Kingsward’s eyes. “Then you shall know as much as I can tell you, Bee. Your father had a letter last week, from a lady, telling him that she had a revelation to make. The letter alarmed your father. He felt that he must know what it meant. He could not go himself, but he sent Mr. Passavant, the lawyer. The lady said that she had lived in Mr. Leigh’s house for years, in the time of his late wife. She said Mr. Leigh had--had behaved very badly to her.” “That I do not believe,” said Bee. The words flashed out like a knife. They made a stir in the air, as if a sudden gleam had come into it. And then all was still again, a strange dead quiet coming after, in which Bee perceived Aubrey silent, covering his face with his hand. It came across her with a sudden pang that she had heard somebody say this morning or last night--“He did not deny it.” “And that he had promised her--marriage--that he was engaged to her, as good as--as good as married to her--when he had the cruelty--oh, my dear child, my dear child!--to come to you.”