"'I will do it, Estelle. Perhaps, in making this promise, I am wrong, as I am in everything else; but I will help you for the sake of the love that was between us when we were happy young girls.'
"I had no words in which to thank her; it really seemed to me as though the burden of my trouble were for the time removed from me to her.
"'How will it be?' I asked her.
"'Give me time to think, Estelle; I must arrange it all in my own mind first. Do not come near me for three days.'
"At the end of that time my mother received a letter from Lady Agnes, urging her to allow me to go with her to Switzerland; she was not strong, and required change of air. My mother had implicit faith and confidence in Lady Delapain.
"'You have not been looking well lately, Estelle,' she said to me; 'it will do you good to go.'
"Ah, me! what a weight those few words took from my mind. Then Lady Agnes called upon us, and spoke to my mother about our little tour.
"'We shall enjoy ourselves after our own fashion,' she said. 'Lord Delapain goes with us as far as Interlachen; there he will leave us for a time. You may safely trust Lady Estelle with me.'
"My mother had not the slightest idea that anything was unusual. The only thing that embarrassed me was that she insisted upon my taking my maid Leeson with me. When I told this to Lady Agnes, she was, like myself, dismayed for a few minutes, then she said, calmly;
"'It will not matter; we should have been obliged to take some one into our confidence; as well Leeson as another. We must tell her of the marriage.'