"Mr. Hayne tells me that Clancy's confession really explained how Captain Rayner was mistaken. It was not so much the captain's fault, after all."
"So Mr. Hayne told him. You knew they—you saw Mr. Hayne offer him his hand, didn't you?"
"I did not see: I knew he would." More vivid color, and much hesitation now.
"Knew he would! Why, Nellie, what do you mean? He didn't tell you that he was to see Captain Rayner. He couldn't have known."
"But I knew, Kate; and I told him how the captain had suffered."
"But how could you know that he would shake hands with him?"
"He promised me."
The silence was unbroken for a moment. Nellie Travers could hear the beating of her own heart as she nestled closer to her sister and stole a hand into hers. Mrs. Rayner was trying hard to be dutiful, stern, unbending, to keep her faith with the distant lover in the East, whether Nell was true or no; but she had been so humbled, so changed, so shaken, by the events of the past few weeks, that she felt all her old spirit of guardianship ebbing away. "Must I give you up, Nell? and must he, too?—Mr. Van Antwerp?"
"He has not answered my last letter, Kate. It is nearly a week since I have heard from him."
"What did you write, Nellie?"