Edith by this time had the picture in her hand, and holding it to the light exclaimed, "Oh, but she's so jolly, Mr. Arthur. May I kiss her, please?"
"Certainly," he answered, and Edith's warm red lips pressed the senseless glass, which seemed to smile upon her.
"Pretty—pretty—pretty N-n-n-Nina!" she whispered, and in an instant Arthur clutched her so tightly that she cried out with pain.
"Who told you her name was Nina?" he asked in tones so stern and startling that Edith's senses all forsook her, and trembling with fright she stammered,
"I don't know, sir—unless you did. Of course you did, how else should I know. I never saw the lady."
Yes, how else should she know, and though he would almost have sworn that name had never passed his lips save in solitude, he concluded be most have dropped it inadvertently in Edith's hearing, and still holding her by the arm, he said, "Edith, if I supposed yon would repeat the word Nina, either at Collingwood or elsewhere, I certainly should be tempted to leave you here alone."
"I won't, I won't, oh, Mr. Arthur, I surely won't!" and Edith clung to him in terror. "I'll never say it—not even to Mr. Harrington. Ill forget it, I can, I know."
"Not to Mr. Harrington of all others," thought Arthur, but he would not put himself more in Edith's power than he already was, and feeling that he must trust her to a certain extent, he continued, "If you stay at Collingwood, I may sometime bring this Nina to see you, but until I do you must never breathe her name to any living being, or say a word of the picture."
"But Mr. Harrington," interrupted the far-seeing Edith, "He'll have to know why Mrs. Atherton sent me away.
"I'll attend to that," returned Arthur. "I shall tell him it was a daguerreotype of a lady friend. There's nothing wrong in that, is there?" he asked, as he noticed the perplexed look of the honest- hearted Edith.