"Oh," she cried in bitter despairing tones, "I thought he loved me, he said it with his eyes and with his tongue; he said I was the sweetest, fairest, dearest girl he ever saw, and he promised to come again in a year at the very farthest; but more than a year has gone by and never a word from him." His first emotion as he listened to this burst of anguish was utter astonishment; the next the fear that she was not in her right mind, for he had every reason to suppose that she had never met other than to exchange the merest civilities of life with any man. Her mother had no suspicion of the real cause of her child's suffering. Marian had not confided in her, had never mentioned Lyttleton's name; and the death of the Misses Burns, followed very shortly by the removal to a distance of their maid Kitty, had left no one in the neighborhood who had been cognizant of even that small part of the intercourse between Marian and Lyttleton of which Woodland was the scene. But the ice once broken, the pent up waters of the poor child's anguish speedily swept away every barrier of reserve, and the whole sad story was poured out into Kenneth's sympathizing ear. It brought relief from the fear for her reason, but filled his heart with grief and pity for her, mingled with burning indignation against the author of her woe. "And who is this wretch?" he cried in tones quivering with intense emotion. The answer was so low that he bent his ear almost to her lips to catch it. "Lyttleton!" he exclaimed, "Lysander Lyttleton? I know the man; and Marian, my poor deceived and wronged little sister, he is utterly unworthy of even your friendship; 'twould be the consorting of the dove with the vulture." She gave a sharp cry of pain. "O, Kenneth, Kenneth, you can't mean it?" It was hard to see her suffer, but best that she should know the truth at once. In a few brief sentences, carefully worded to spare her as much as possible, he told of Lyttleton's approaching marriage. She did not cry out again, but asked, in a tone of quiet despair, to whom. It cost Kenneth an effort to speak Nell's name, and something in his voice thrilled his listener with an instant consciousness of what she was to him. She lifted her face to his, the wet eyes full of tender pity. "You, too, Kenneth, my poor dear Kenneth?" she said in low, tremulous tones, "has he wronged you too? Then he is cast out of my heart forever. I cannot love one so base, so unworthy." But with the last words her head went down upon his shoulder again with a passionate burst of weeping. A storm of feeling swept over Kenneth as he held her close, not speaking, for he could find no words, but softly smoothing her hair, gently pressing one of the small, thin hands which he had taken in his.