"As I live, none," was the earnest reply.
"But I have."
"Then tell me, freely, what you think," said the sister.
"Either he is won by another, or—"
"Won by another! Mary! He is not so base as that. You wrong my brother."
"God grant that I do! But he is changed to me, that I know. He has ceased to love me as he did; that, too, I know. As to the cause, it matters not, perhaps. Enough that I am no longer loved."
The face of the unhappy girl was pale, her eyes full of tears, and hear lips quivering. Mary Dunbar did not reply for some time; for she did not know what to say. At last she looked up from the floor, and was about speaking, when a servant came to the door of the chamber in which they were sitting, and said that Mr. Dunbar was in the parlor.
"Know the cause this night, Mary," said the sister, rising. "Do not let him go without the fullest explanation of his changed manner towards you. I will retire; you need not mention that I was here."
The two friends parted, one to go home to her father's house and there await her brother's return, to whom she meant to speak freely as soon as she could see him, and the other to meet her estranged lover.
After parting with Mary Dunbar, Mary Lee spent nearly ten minutes in the effort to school her feelings so as to meet Dunbar without betraying the deep disturbance under which she was laboring. She then descended to the parlor.