She had fallen back against the deck-rail, grasping it with both hands as if unable to stand alone; her cheeks and lips had blanched to an ashen hue, her eyes were wild and frightened. "Queenie," he said, with an unconscious accent of sternness, "do I speak the truth or not?" "Lawrence," she gasped, in a frightened voice, "I thought you knew--did not Sydney tell you? you said she had told you _all_!" "I meant she had told me all that had transpired between you two in the last six weeks," he answered; "she did not refer to the past only to say that you had been resurrected from the grave by a disappointed suitor who hated you and kept you for weary months a prisoner. What more is there to tell, Queenie?" he inquired, in a voice rendered sharp by suddenly awakened suspicion that as yet took no tangible form. Through the wild chaos of conflicting feelings that rushed over her she was conscious of a new feeling of tenderness and respect for poor, erring Sydney. "She kept my terrible secret after all," she thought. "I believed she had told him everything, but in her desire to atone for her cruelty to me she kept back all that dreadful story, and died in the fond belief that my happiness was secure. She was nobler than I thought. But, oh! what an awful position I am placed in. I thought he knew all and had forgiven me. I meant to tell him everything before I came back to him, and would have done it but for that dreadful mistake. But now, oh, how can I?" "Uncle Rob is right, Lawrence," she said, speaking with the calmness of despair. "I did not go to Europe with mamma. I meant to go, but at the very last my heart failed me and I begged to remain at home with papa. She gave me my will, though very reluctantly, and I staid behind. Afterward I went out of town on a visit." "And yet," he said, with a heavy frown, "it was supposed--you allowed everyone to believe that you had been in Europe. Why was that?" Great crimson waves of color swept into her cheeks at his half-angry words. "Mamma permitted it," she stammered. "She was so angry and ashamed because I remained behind, and I was, too, after I saw how silly I had been. So when people spoke of it we simply never contradicted it. But you may have noticed that I would never speak of that continental tour--that I always turned the subject when anyone named it." "Yes, I do remember that," he said. "But you should, at least, have told me, Queenie. It is very strange that you made a secret of such a trifle." "I am very sorry," she answered, sadly; "I intended to tell you about it before--before I came back to you, but you said when I spoke of it that--that Sydney had told you _all_. I am very, very sorry." Her eyes fell and rested on the blue waves of the ocean. Her head felt dizzy with the motion of the ship and the waves. It seemed to her as if she could scarcely stand. She seemed to be whirling round and round. Mr. Lyle came forward and took her hand.