"Sit down so that I may look at you."
Click to [ENLARGE]

"I am glad at any rate that you are not angry."

"Why should I be angry? Had the idea been distasteful to me I should have declined. I know not why, but it is a sort of pleasure to me to see you. It is a poor time we women have,—is it not,—in becoming playthings to men? So this Lothario that was once mine, is behaving badly to you also. Is it so? He is no longer mine, and you may ask me freely for aid, if there be any that I can give you. If he were an American I should say that he had behaved badly to me;—but as he is an Englishman perhaps it is different. Now tell me;—what can I do, or what can I say?"

"He told me that you could tell me the truth."

"What truth? I will certainly tell you nothing that is not true. You have quarrelled with him too. Is it not so?"

"Certainly I have quarrelled with him."

"I am not curious;—but perhaps you had better tell me of that. I know him so well that I can guess that he should give offence. He can be full of youthful ardour one day, and cautious as old age itself the next. But I do not suppose that there has been need for such caution with you. What is it, Miss Carbury?"

Hetta found the telling of her story to be very difficult. "Mrs. Hurtle," she said, "I had never heard your name when he first asked me to be his wife."

"I dare say not. Why should he have told you anything of me?"

"Because,—oh, because—. Surely he ought, if it is true that he had once promised to marry you."