She did not finish the sentence, for she could not say “Because you are Arthur’s friend.” That would have betrayed the miserable secret tugging at her heart, and prompting her to refuse Thornton Hastings, who had also thought of Arthur Leighton, wondering if it were thus that she rejected him, and if in the background there was another love standing between her and the two men to win whom many a woman would almost have given her right hand. To say that Thornton was not piqued at her refusal would be false. He had not expected it, accustomed as he was to adulation; but he tried to put that feeling down, and his manner was even more kind and considerate than ever as he walked back to the hotel, where Mrs. Meredith was waiting for them, her practised eye detecting at once that something was amiss. Thornton Hastings knew Mrs. Meredith thoroughly, and, wishing to shield Anna from her displeasure, he preferred stating the facts himself to having them wrung from the pale, agitated girl, who, bidding him good-night, went quickly to her room; so, when she was gone, and he stood for a moment alone with Mrs. Meredith, he said: “I have proposed to your niece, but she cannot answer me now. She wishes for a month’s probation, which I have granted, and I ask that she shall not be persecuted about the matter. I must have an unbiassed answer.” He bowed politely and walked away, while Mrs. Meredith almost trod on air as she climbed the stairs and sought her niece’s chamber. Over the interview which ensued that night we pass silently, and come to the next morning, when Anna sat alone on the piazza at the rear of the hotel, watching the playful gambols of some children on the grass, and wondering if she ever could conscientiously say yes to Thornton Hastings’ suit. He was coming towards her now, lifting his hat politely, and asking what she would give for news from home. “I found this on my table,” he said, holding up a dainty little missive, on the corner of which was written “In haste,” as if its contents were of the utmost importance. “The boy must have made a mistake, or else he thought it well to begin at once bringing your letters to me,” he continued with a smile, as he handed Anna the letter from Lucy Harcourt. “I have one, too, from Arthur, which I will read while you are devouring yours, and then, perhaps, you will take a little ride. The September air is very bracing this morning,” he said, walking away to the far end of the piazza while Anna broke the seal of the envelope, hesitating a moment ere taking the letter from it, and trembling as if she guessed what it contained. There was a quivering of the eyelids, a paling of the lips as she glanced at the first few lines, then with the low moaning cry, “No, no, oh no, not that,” she fell upon her face.