Maurice Evandale was obliged to go to Beechfield that evening; but, before he went, he explained his position more fully to Miss Vane than he had thought it necessary to do with Enid. His father had left him an ample income; he had no near relatives, and was able to look forward with confidence to giving Enid a comfortable home. He wanted to marry her as soon as possible; but, as Miss Vane pointed out to him, there was no use in being in too great a hurry, for many things would have to be settled before Enid's hand could be given in marriage. She herself had always meant to leave Enid a fair share of her own wealth, and she announced her intention of settling a considerable sum upon her at once. If the General would do the same thing, Enid would be a bride with a goodly dower. But Miss Vane was a little inclined to think that her brother would be angry with the girl for leaving his house, and that he might be difficult to manage. Mr. Evandale must be guided by circumstances—so she said to him; and, if Dick was ill, and the General anxious and out of temper, he had better defer his proposal for a week or two. She promised that she would do her best to help him; and he knew that he might rely on Enid's assurance of her love.

Accordingly he went back to Beechfield; and Enid was left at Miss Vane's, there to gain strength of mind and body in the pleasant peaceable atmosphere of her house.

Miss Vane did not give many parties or go much into society about this time. With those whom she really loved she was always at her best; and many of her associates would have been thoroughly astonished to see how tender, how loving this worldly, cynical old woman, as they thought her, could show herself to a girl like Enid Vane. She gave up many engagements for Enid's sake, and lived quietly and as best suited her young visitor. For Enid, although rapidly recovering, was not yet strong enough to bear the excitement of London gaieties. Besides, Dick was reported to be very ill, and during his illness Enid could not have borne to go out to theatres and balls.

The General had been driving to the station when the accident took place. The horse had taken fright and grown unmanageable; the phaeton had been nearly dashed to pieces; and Dick, who had been on the box beside his father, had had a terrible fall. He had never spoken or been conscious since; he lingered on from day to day in a state of complete insensibility; and while he was in that state the General would not leave him. Of Flossy nobody heard a word. The General wrote to his sister, and sent kind messages to Enid, but did not mention Flossy. Aunt Leo and Enid both wondered why.

Enid had been in town nearly a week, when one morning a letter was brought to her at the sight of which she colored deeply. She was sitting at the luncheon-table with her aunt, and for a few minutes she left the letter beside her plate unopened.

"Won't you read your letter, dear?" said Miss Vane.

"Thank you, aunt Leo." Then she took the letter and opened it; but her color varied strangely as she read, and, when she had finished it, she pushed it towards her aunt. "Will you read it?" she said quietly. "It seems to me that he does not understand our position."

The servants were not in the room, and she could talk freely. Aunt Leo settled her eye-glasses on her nose, and looked at the letter.

"Why, it's from Hubert!" she said breathlessly.

Then she read it half aloud; and Enid winced at the sound of some of the words.

"My dearest Enid," Hubert had written—"I have just heard that you are in town. If I could come to see you, I would; but you know, I suppose, that I have been ill. I have had no letter from you for what seems an interminable time. I must ask you to excuse more from me to-day—my hand is abominably shaky!

"Yours,
"H.L."

The handwriting was certainly shaky; Miss Vane had some difficulty in deciphering the crooked characters.

"H'm!" she said, laying the letter on the table and looking inquiringly at her niece. "What does he mean?"

"He means that he still thinks me engaged to him," said Enid, the color hot in her girlish cheeks.

"Then you had better disabuse him of that notion, my dear, for you can't be engaged to two people at once; and I have given my consent to your marriage with Mr. Evandale."

"Do you think," said Enid, in a half whisper, "that I have been mistaken, and that Hubert will be—sorry?"

"No, dear, I don't!"

"Aunt Leo, is this report true about him and Miss West?"

"What do you know about Miss West, Enid?"

"Uncle Richard told me. She came to nurse Hubert when he was ill. Uncle Richard seemed to think that very wrong of her; but I don't. I think it was right, if she loved him. If Maurice were ill, I should like to go and nurse him, whether he cared for me or not.""Child," said Miss Vane solemnly, "you are a simpleton! You don't know what you are talking about! I have seen Cynthia West and talked to her, and she is not a woman who, I should think, knows what true love is at all. She is hard and careless and worldly, and singularly ill-mannered. She is not the woman that Hubert would do well to marry."

"What am I to say to him?" asked Enid, with her eyes on the tablecloth, "if he says that he does not want to marry her—that he wants to marry me?"

"You must tell him the truth, my dear," said Miss Vane, rising briskly from the table, and shaking out a fold of her dress on which some crumbs had fallen—"namely, that you don't care a rap for him, but that you are in love with the Beechfield parson; and if Hubert is a gentleman, he will not press his claim. And to do Hubert justice, whatever may be his faults, I believe that he generally acts like a gentleman."

Miss Vane went away from the dining-room to dress for a drive and a round of calls. Before long, Enid, who had refused to accompany her, was left in the house alone; and then a vague desire began to take definite shape in her mind. She would see Hubert for herself. She would claim her own freedom, and tell him that he was free. He was well enough now to listen to her, if he was well enough to write. She would go to him while aunt Leo was out—that very afternoon.

A hansom-cab made the matter very easy. She had almost a sense of elation as she stood at the door of Hubert's sitting-room and knocked her timid little knock, which had to be twice repeated before the door was opened; and then a tall slight girl in black stood in the doorway and asked her what she wanted.

"I want to see Mr. Lepel," said Enid, blushing and hesitating.

"Mr. Lepel has been ill." The girl's clear voice had a curious vibration in it as she spoke. "Do you want to see him particularly?"

Enid took courage and looked at her. The girl wore a black hat; her dress was severely plain, and her face was pale. Enid thought there was nothing remarkable about her—therefore that she could not be Cynthia West.

"I am his cousin," she explained simply, "and my name is Vane—Enid Vane."A flash of new expression changed the girl's face at once. Not remarkable—with those great dark eyes, and the lovely color coming and going in the oval cheeks! Enid confessed her mistake to herself frankly. The girl was remarkably handsome—it was a fact that could not be gainsaid. Enid looked at her gravely, with a little feeling of repulsion which she found it difficult to help.

"Will you come in?" said Cynthia. "Mr. Lepel is in his room; but he means to get up this afternoon. If you will kindly wait for a few moments in his sitting-room, I am sure that he will be with you before long. I will speak to his man Jenkins."

She had ushered Enid into Hubert's front room, from which the untidiness had disappeared. His artistic properties were displayed to great advantage, and every vase was filled with flowers. It was plain that a woman's hand had been at work.

Enid glanced around her with curiosity. Cynthia pushed a chair towards her, and waited until the visitor had seated herself. Then, repeating the words, "I will speak to his man Jenkins," she prepared to leave the room.

Enid rose from her chair.

"You are Miss West," she said—"Cynthia West?"

"Cynthia Westwood," replied the girl, and looked sorrowfully yet proudly into Enid's eyes.

Her face was flushed, but Enid's had turned pale.

"Will you stay and speak to me for a minute or two? I see that you were going out——"

"It does not matter; I need not go," said Cynthia, removing her hat and laying it carelessly on one of the tables. "If you want to speak to me——"

Neither of them concluded her sentence. Each was conscious of great embarrassment.

For once in her life, Cynthia stood like a culprit; for she thought that Enid loved Hubert Lepel, and that she—Cynthia—had withdrawn him from his allegiance. It was Enid who broke the silence.

"I wanted to see you," she said. "I came to see you more than to see Hubert. I heard you were here."

Cynthia looked up quickly.

"You heard Mrs. Vane's opinion of me, I suppose?" It was bitterly spoken.

"My uncle told me—not Mrs. Vane," said Enid. "I should not believe a thing just because Mrs. Vane said it—nor my uncle, for his opinions all come from Mrs. Vane."

Her expressions were somewhat vague; but her meaning was clear. Cynthia flashed a grateful glance at her.

"You mean," she said, holding her graceful head a trifle higher than usual, "that you do not think that I am unwomanly—that I have disgraced myself—because I came here to nurse Mr. Lepel in his illness?"

"No! I should have done the same in your place—if I loved a man."

The color mounted to the roots of Cynthia's hair.

"You know that?" she said quickly. "That I—I love him, I mean? There is no use in denying it—I do. There is no harm in it. I shall not hurt him by loving him—as I shall love him—to the last day of my life."

"No; I should be the last person to blame you," said Enid very gently, "because I know what love is myself;" and then the clear color flamed all over her fair face as it had flamed in Cynthia's.

Cynthia bit her lip.

"You do not think," she said, with the impetuous abruptness which might have been ungraceful in a less beautiful woman, but was never unbecoming to her, "that because I love him I want to take him away from those who have a better right than I to his love? I learned to care for him unawares; I had given him my love in secret long before—before he knew. He knows it now; I cannot help his knowing. But I am not ashamed. I should be ashamed if I thought that I could make him unfaithful to you."

Enid looked at her, and admired. Cynthia's generosity was taking her heart by storm. But for the moment she could not speak, and Cynthia went on rapidly.

"You do not know what he has been to me. I have had trouble and misfortune in my life, and I have had kindness and good friends also; but he—he was almost the first—he and you together, Miss Vane, although you do not know what I mean perhaps. Do you remember meeting a ragged child on the road outside your park gates, and speaking kindly to her and giving her your only shilling? That was myself!""You," cried Enid—"you that little gipsy girl! I remember that I could not understand why I was sent away." Then she stopped short and looked aside, fearing lest she had said something that might hurt.

"I know," said Cynthia. "Your aunt—Miss Vane—was shocked to find you talking to me, for she knew who I was. She sent you back to the house; but before you went you asked Mr. Lepel to be good to me. He promised—and he kept his word. Although I did not know it until long afterwards, it was he who sent me to school for many years, and had me trained and cared for in every possible way. I did not even know his name; but I treasured up my memories of that one afternoon when I saw him at Beechfield all through the years that I spent at school. I knew your name; and I kept the shilling that you gave me, in remembrance of your goodness. I have worn it ever since. See—it is round my neck now, and I shall never part from it. And do you think that, after all these years of gratitude and tender memory of your kindness, I would do you a wrong so terrible as that of which Mrs. Vane accuses me? I would die first! I love Hubert; but, if I may say so, I love you, Miss Vane, too, humbly and from a distance—and I will never willingly give you a moment's pain. I will be guided by what you wish me to do. If you tell me to leave the house this day, I will go, and never see him more. You have the right to command, and I will obey."

"But why," said Enid slowly, "did you not think of all this earlier? Why, when you were older, did you not remember that you—you had no right——"

She could not finish her sentence.

"Because of his relationship to you, and his engagement to you?" said Cynthia. "Oh, I see that I must tell you more! Miss Vane, I was ungrateful enough to run away from the school at which he placed me, as soon as my story became accidently known to my schoolfellows. I was then befriended by an old musician, who taught me how to sing and got me an engagement on the stage. When he died, I was reduced to great poverty. I heard of Mr. Lepel at the theatre. He wrote plays, and had become acquainted with my face and my stage-name; but he did not know that I was the girl whom he had sent to school; and I did not know that he was the gentleman whom I had seen with you at Beechfield. His face sometimes seemed vaguely familiar to me; but I could not imagine why."

"And he did not remember you?"

"Not in the least. I applied to him for help to get work," said Cynthia, flushing hotly at the remembrance; "and he found out that I had a voice and helped me. I went to him because I heard of his kindness to others, and I had read a story that he had written, which made me think that he would be kind. And he was kind—so kind that, without design, without any attempt to win my heart, I fell in love with him, Miss Vane, not knowing that he was your cousin, not knowing that he was plighted to another. You may not forgive me for it; I can only say that I do not think that it was my fault; and I am sure that he—he was not to blame. You may punish me as you will"—there was a rising sob in Cynthia's throat—"but you must forgive him, and he will be true—true to you."

She covered her face and burst into passionate tears. She could control herself no longer; and at first she hardly felt the touch of Enid's hand upon her arm, or heard the words of comfort that fell from Enid's lips.

"You do not understand me," Enid was saying, when at last Cynthia could listen, "and I want to make you understand. I have misjudged you—will you forgive me? It has been very, very hard for you!"

The tears were rolling down her own cheeks as she spoke. Cynthia surrendered her hand to Enid's clasp, and listened as if she were in a dream—a pleasant beautiful dream, too good to last.

"We may perhaps be divided all our lives," said Enid, "because of things that happened when we were children—things that you cannot help any more than I. But, as far as it is possible, I want always to be your friend. Think of me as your friend—will you not, Cynthia?"

"If I may," said Cynthia.

"I shall always remember you," Enid went on. "And I do not think that it was wrong for you to love Hubert, or for him to love you—and he does love you, does he not? You need not be afraid to tell me, because I came here chiefly for one thing—to tell him that I cannot marry him, and to ask him to set me free.""Not for my sake?" said Cynthia, trembling from head to foot.

"Not for your sake, dear, but for my own," said Enid, taking both her hands and looking straight into Cynthia's tear-filled eyes; "because I have been as unfaithful to him as I think that he has been to me—and I have given my heart away to some one else. I am going to marry Mr. Evandale, the Rector of Beechfield."

The two girls were standing thus, hand-in-hand, the eyes of each fixed on the other's face, when the door of communication with the next room was suddenly opened. Hubert stood there, leaning on Jenkins' arm—for he was still exceedingly weak—and the start of surprise which he gave when he saw Enid and Cynthia was uncontrollable. Cynthia dropped Enid's hand and turned away; there was something in her face which she could not bear to have seen. Enid advanced towards her cousin, and held out her hand in quiet friendly greeting.