We reap as we have sown.” Whittier. |The broad staircase was covered with cocoa-nut matting, she toiled up the slippery steps feeling dazed and giddy, groping her way more by instinct than by sight to her own door. Her room was at the side of the hotel, and its French window, opening on to a little balcony, looked out over the woods of Veytaux and the distant turrets of Chillon to the Dent du Midi. She threw herself down now into the depths of an armchair, letting the soft air play on her hot cheeks, and staring out in a bewildered way at the lovely view which contrasted so strangely with her misery. Her whole world seemed to be shaken to its foundation. Her instinct warned her that the guardian, whose plausible talk and apparent kindliness had long deceived her, was in no sense a man to be trusted. And seizing the clue, which his own accusations of others had furnished her with, she began to wonder if in some unaccountable way Bruce Wylie himself was one of those fortune-hunters, who finding themselves in difficulties sought to repair their losses with some heiress’ money. Her clear insight had at once detected the false ring in his apologies about the lost train on the previous day. He had somehow forfeited her confidence, and the more she thought over her interview with Sir Matthew, and the extraordinary determination he had evidently made to marry her to his friend, the more she distrusted and dreaded them both. It might possibly be that they had mismanaged her affairs, and were perhaps speculating with her money. She had heard of many cases where luckless women had been ruined by a fraudulent trustee. Fortunately, though young and innocent, Evereld had been wisely educated, and even in all the agitation of the moment she was able clearly to see how foolish was the notion that in order to quiet unkind tongues, or to satisfy the outraged feelings of Mrs. Grundy, she should consent publicly to perjure herself, by vowing to love as a wife a man she did not desire to marry. Sir Matthew and Bruce Wylie had fancied that a pure-minded, proud girl would easily be frightened into a marriage which in many respects was outwardly desirable. Women were seldom logical, and a little novice like Evereld could, they felt sure, be cajoled or scared or flattered into obedience to their wishes. Sir Matthew had reserved his direct command and the allusion to his authority as a guardian as his trump card. He thought because she had made no reply to this speech that he had convinced her. But Evereld knew that obedience to the truth must always stand before obedience to any authority, and she was emphatically not one of those plastic, weak-minded girls who furnish victims for the modern marriage market, and allow themselves to be sacrificed to the ambition of their parents.