How handsome and eager he looked, how his dark eyes sparkled with expectancy. Her heart reproached her that she could not love him more, even while she consoled herself with her aunt’s advice: “Love will come in time.” She would not hesitate a moment at paying the price he asked for Patty’s discomfiture--no, no!--and quickly drawing his face down to a level with her own, Eva pressed her full red lips warmly, tenderly upon his, thrilling him to keenest bliss--the first and last kiss his shy little sweetheart ever gave him, the memory of which went with him through life and down to death. She had triumphed over Patty; the victory was hers. Reggie never appeared to see Miss Groves afterward, and presently she realized that the snub was intentional. “He has cut you dead; there can be no doubt of it. What can be the reason?” Mrs. Putnam wondered. “That odious Eva has made him do it. She was afraid I would blab secrets and break up her marriage,” Patty muttered viciously. “My dear girl, if you know of any reason why he should not marry your proud cousin, you ought to tell him before it is too late.” “I know dreadful things--but how can I tell him when he won’t even speak to me?” “You could write him a letter, or you could confide it to me, and I would find a means to let him know.” CHAPTER XXXV. THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL. Eva wondered if she ought to tell her father of Patty Groves’ presence in the city, and her veiled threats to betray to Reggie the secrets of his sweetheart’s shadowed past. She finally decided not to do so, saying to herself: “Why vex poor papa by bringing up these old things that wound him so? There is no need of it, for all is safe since Reggie has promised never to speak to Patty again. She cannot tell her malicious stories to deaf ears.” So she maintained a mistaken silence. As Mr. Somerville had been absent from the city when the cousins made their raid on the family residence, and were incontinently routed by his indignant daughter, he was quite in ignorance of their visit to New York. Had he known of it he would not have lost an hour in seeking their presence and commanding their silence by the power he held to enforce it. He had never even told his daughter of the mortgage he had held on Grandfather Groves’ property so many years, generously deciding to let the impecunious descendants have the benefit of the increased value of the land. So it was only by his generosity that they were enabled to live in luxury and cut such a dash in the world that, were the uncertain oil wells to fail to-morrow they would be relegated to utter poverty, owing to their constant extravagance. With the knowledge of the mortgage and the threat of foreclosing it, Patty would have been glad enough to hold her tongue. But Eva, ignorant of her father’s power, and underrating her cousin’s malignity, held her peace, and the sword of fate remained suspended over her head, ready to fall at the opportune moment.