“This good-looking, agreeable friend of Dr. Anthony is from New York. It is not possible that the story of my trouble has reached the great city. Perhaps he does not _know_.” There was inexpressible comfort and relief in the thought. Unconsciously the tense bands about her heart began to loosen. It was pleasant to meet any one, even a stranger, who did not distrust and suspect her. She ventured to lift her frank, blue eyes to his face, and when she saw how kindly he was regarding her with his attentive gray eyes, she took heart of grace to talk to him, because she believed that he did not know. Some of her old impulsiveness returned to her. She began to take an interest in his conversation. He on his part began to see what a charming girl she might have been if this shadow of some unknown sin had not fallen on the whiteness of her life. Once or twice she even laughed aloud, and he said to himself, even though he was intensely practical and not in the least romantic, that her laughter was as sweet as a chime of music. He talked to her of the world, of the gay cities, of the people he had met, of the places he had visited, and she listened with delight. She had never met any one like Mr. Lane before--any one who had seen the world and knew it thoroughly in both its good and bad phases. She became so interested that she forgot momently the brooding shadow of trouble that hung always over her. Her old love of life and the world returned to her. A soft color glowed on her cheeks, her eyes beamed as she cried out, vivaciously: “Oh, how I envy you, Mr. Lane! You have traveled, you have seen the world, you have enjoyed life! There is nothing I should like better!” He looked at her with a smile. Her beautiful face was momently radiant. She was full of eager anticipation and desire. “You would like to travel?” he said. “Oh, so much!” she cried, clasping her shapely white hands together in the earnestness of her feelings, and carried out of herself by excitement. “Have you ever been in New York, Miss Rodney?” he inquired, with apparent carelessness. A little laugh that was half pity and half self-scorn rippled sweetly over her lips. She was evidently amused at his entire ignorance of her traveling record. “New York!” she exclaimed. “Why, Mr. Lane, would you believe that I have never been away from Chester in my life?” CHAPTER XXXI. The sweet, high pitched voice reached every ear in the room distinctly. Every one was surprised at the assertion; but they saw that Aline had forgotten herself, and all were wise enough not to take any apparent notice of the admission. She continued, confidentially. “You see, Mr. Lane, we lived on a farm in the country, about two miles from Chester, while I was a child. Before I was grown up papa sold the farm, and came to live at the cottage here, and here we have been ever since, and I have never been five miles from Chester in my life.” She saw some sort of a wonder on his face, and added, gayly: