"What is it, darling?" Mrs. Hartley said to her friend when they met the next morning at the late breakfast which, out of deference to foreign customs, they had adopted. She looked observantly at the restless movements of the girl, and the changing color in her cheeks. "You have not eaten anything, and you do nothing but shiver and sigh."

Mrs. Hartley was quite convinced in her own mind that Lettice had received an offer of marriage from her cousin Brooke Dalton. Possibly she had already accepted it. She should hear all about it that morning. The symptoms overnight had not been too favorable but she put down the disturbance which Lettice had shown to an excess of nervous excitement. Women do not all receive a sentence of happiness for life in precisely the same manner, she reflected: some cry and some laugh, some dance and sing, others collapse and are miserable. Lettice was one of the latter kind, and it was for Mrs. Hartley to give her a mother's sympathy and comfort. So she awaited the word which should enable her to cut the dykes of her affection.

Lettice turned white and cold, and her grey eyes were fixed with a stony look on the basket of flowers which decorated the breakfast table.

"I am not well," she said, "but it is worse with the mind than the body. I have done a wicked thing, and to atone for it I am going to do a cruel thing; so how could you expect me to have an appetite?"

"My dear pet!" said Mrs. Hartley, putting out her hand to touch the fingers of her friend, which she found as cold as ice, "you need not tell me that you have done anything wicked, for I don't believe it. And I am sure you would not do anything cruel, knowing beforehand that it was cruel."

"Is it not wicked to tell a lie?—for I have done that."

"No, no!"

"And will it not be cruel to you and to Edith that I should cause pain to your cousin, and make him think me insincere and mercenary?"

"He could not possibly think so," said Mrs. Hartley with decision.

"He must."

"What are you going to do, Lettice?"

"I am going to tell him that I was not honest when I allowed him to say that he would come for my answer in a month, and to think it possible that the answer might be favorable—when God knows that it cannot."

"Brooke has asked you to be his wife?"

"Yes."

"And you told him to come for his answer in a month?"

"I agreed to it."

"Well, darling, I think that was very natural—if you could not say 'yes' at once to my cousin."

There was a touch of resentment in the words "my cousin," which Lettice felt. Mrs. Hartley could not understand that Brooke Dalton should have to offer himself twice over—even to her Lettice.

"Wait this month," she went on, "and we shall see what you think at the end of it. You are evidently upset now—taken by surprise, little innocent as you are. The fact is, you have never really recovered from your illness, and I believe you set to work again too soon. A hard-working life would not have suited you; but, thank Heaven, there is an end of that. You will never have to make yourself a slave again!"

"Dear, you do not understand. I did a wicked thing yesterday, and now I must tell Mr. Dalton, and ask him to forgive me."

"Nonsense, child!"

"Ah!" said Lettice, sadly, "it is the first time you have ever spoken sharply to me, and that is part of my punishment!"

Mrs. Hartley sank back in her chair, and looked as though she was about to take refuge in a quiet fit of weeping.

"I can't comprehend it," she said; "I thought we were going to be so happy; and I am sure you and Brooke would suit each other exactly."

"Oh no, indeed; there are thousands of women who will make him a better wife than I could ever have done."

"Now, do listen to me, and give yourself at least a week to think it over, before you say all this to Brooke! That cannot make things worse, either for him or for yourself. Why should you be so rash about it?"

"I wish I could see any other way out of it—but I cannot; and I have been thinking and thinking all the night long. It is a case of conscience with me now."

"You cannot expect me to see it, dear," said Mrs. Hartley, rising from her chair. "It is simply incomprehensible, that you should first agree to wait a month, and then, after a few hours, insist on giving such a pointed refusal. Think, think, my darling!" she went on, laying a caressing hand on Lettice's shoulder. "Suppose that Brooke should feel himself insulted by such treatment. Could you be surprised if he did?"

Lettice buried her face in her hands, mutely despairing. Her punishment was very hard to bear, and the tears which trickled through her fingers showed how much she felt it. With an effort she controlled herself, and looked up again.

"I will tell him all," she said. "He shall be the judge. If he still wishes to renew his question in a month, I will hold myself to that arrangement. I shall claim nothing and refuse nothing; but if he voluntarily withdraws his offer, then, dear, you will see that there could be no alternative."

Mrs. Hartley bent to kiss her.

"I suppose that is all that can be done, Lettice. I am very sorry that my darling is in trouble; but if I could help you, you would tell me more."

Then she left the room, and Lettice went to her desk and wrote her letter.

It was written; and without waiting to criticize her own phrases, she sent it to the Palazzo Serafini by a special messenger.

Brooke Dalton knew that he did not excel in letter writing. He could indite a good, clear, sensible business epistle easily enough; but to express love or sorrow or any of the more subtle emotions on paper would have been impossible to him. Therefore he did not attempt the task. He at once walked over to Mrs. Hartley's villa and asked to see Miss Campion.

He was almost sorry that he had done so when Lettice came down to him in the little shaded salon where Mrs. Hartley generally received visitors, and he saw her face. It was white, and her eyes were red with weeping. Evidently that letter had cost her dear, and Brooke Dalton gathered a little courage from the sight.

She came up to him and tried to speak, but the words would not come. Brooke was not a man of very quick intuitions, as a rule; but in this case love gave him sharpness of sight. He took her hand in both his own and held it tenderly while he spoke.

"There is no need for you to say anything," he said; "no need for you to distress yourself in this way. I have only come to say one thing to you, because I felt that I could say it better than I could write it. Of course, I was grieved by your note this morning—terribly grieved and—and—disappointed; but I don't think that it leaves me quite without hope, after all."

"Oh," Lettice was beginning in protest; but he hushed her with a pressure of his hand.

"Listen to me one moment. My last question yesterday was unwarrantable. I never ought to have asked it; and I beg you to consider it and your answer unspoken. Of course, I should be filled with despair if I believed—but I don't believe—I don't conclude anything from the little you have said. I shall still come to you at the end of the month and ask for my answer then."

"It will be of no use," she said, sadly, with averted face and downcast eyes.

"Don't say so. Don't deprive me of every hope. Let me beg of you to say nothing more just now. In a month's time I will come to you, wherever you are, and ask for your final decision."

He saw that Lettice was about to speak, and so he went on hastily, "I don't know if I am doing right, or wrong in handing you this letter from your brother. He gave it me before I left England, and bade me deliver it or hold it back as I saw fit."

"He knew?" said Lettice, trembling a little as the thought of her brother's general attitude towards her wishes for independence and her friendship for Alan Walcott. "You had told him?"

"Yes, he knew when he wrote it that I meant to ask you to be my wife. I do not know what is in it; but I should imagine from the circumstances that it might convey his good wishes for our joint happiness, if such a thing could ever be! I did not make up my mind to give it to you until I had spoken for myself."

Lettice took the letter and looked at it helplessly, the color flushing high in her cheeks. Dalton saw her embarrassment, and divined that she would not like to open the letter when he was there.

"I am going now," he said. "Edith and I leave Florence this afternoon. We are going to Rome—I shall not go back to England until I have your answer. For the present, good-bye."

Lettice gave him her hand again. He pressed it warmly, and left her without another word. She was fain to acknowledge that he could not have behaved with more delicacy or more generosity. But what should she say to him when the month was at an end?

She sat for some time with Sydney's letter in her lap, wishing it were possible for her to give Brooke Dalton the answer that he desired. But she knew that she could not do it. It was reserved for some other woman to make Brooke Dalton happy. She, probably, could not have done it if she had tried; and she consoled herself by thinking that he would live to see this himself.

Sydney's handwriting on the sealed envelope (she noticed that it was Dalton's seal) caught her eye. What could he have to say to her in his friend's behalf? What was there that might be said or left unsaid at Mr. Dalton's pleasure? She had not much in common with Sydney now-a-days; but she knew that he was just married, and that he loved his wife, and she thought that he might perhaps have only kindly words in store for her—words written perhaps when his heart was soft with a new sort of tenderness. Lettice was hungering for a word of love and sympathy. She opened, the letter and read:

Mrs. Hartley was busy in the next room, arranging and numbering a large collection of pictures which she had bought since she came to Florence, and thinking how very useful they would be at her Sunday afternoon and evening receptions, when she went back to London in October. That was the uppermost thought in her mind when she began her work, but Brooke's visit had excited her curiosity, and she was longing to know whether it would succeed in removing her friend's incomprehensible scruples.

Suddenly she was startled by a cry from the other room. It was like a cry of pain, sharp at the beginning, but stifled immediately. Mrs. Hartley ran to the door and looked in. Lettice, with an open letter in her hand, was lying back in her chair, half unconscious, and as white in the face as the letter itself. A glance showed Mrs. Hartley that this letter was not from Brooke; but her only concern at the moment was for her friend.

Poor Lettice had been stunned by Sydney's blundering missive; and yet it was not altogether Sydney's fault that the statement of facts came upon her with crushing force. It was Mrs. Hartley herself who was mainly responsible for the concealment of what had happened to Alan; and she no doubt, had done her part with the best intentions. But the result was disastrous so far as her intrigue and wishes were concerned.

With a little care and soothing, Lettice presently recovered from the shock, at any rate sufficiently to stand up and speak.

"Read this," she said faintly to Mrs. Hartley, steadying herself against the table. "Is it true? Is Alan Walcott in prison? Did you know it?"

"Yes, my darling, I knew it!"

"And never told me? When was it?"

Lettice looked at her friend reproachfully, yet without a trace of anger.

"My dearest Lettice, would it have been wise for me to tell you at the time—the trial was in April—when you were still dangerously weak and excitable? It was not as if I had known that it would be—what shall I say?—a matter of such great concern to you. Remember that we had never mentioned his name since we left England, and I could not assume that the old friendly interest in him survived."

"I do not blame you, dear," said Lettice faintly. "I do not blame Sydney—unless it is for prosecuting him. I cannot think or reason about it—I can only feel; and I suppose that what I feel amounts to my own condemnation."

"Don't talk of condemnation! Your kind heart makes you loyal to everyone whom you have called a friend—and what can be more natural? I was terribly grieved for the unfortunate man when I heard of the trouble he had brought on himself. But we cannot bear each other's sorrows in this world. Each one must reap as he has sown."

"And do you think that Alan has sown what he is reaping? Do you believe that he stabbed his wife?"

"My dear, I must believe it. Everyone believes it."

"Alan!" said Lettice, half raising her hand, and gazing out through the open window, over the banks of the yellow-flowing Arno, with a look of ineffable trust and tenderness in her face, "Alan, did you try to kill the woman who has cursed and degraded you? Did you strike her once in return for her thousand malicious blows? Did you so much as wish her ill to gratify your anger and revenge? No!—there is one, at least, who does not believe you guilty of this crime!"

"Lettice, darling!"

"I hear no voice but that of Alan, calling to me from his prison cell." She sprang to her feet and stood as if listening to a far-off call.

"Lettice, for Heaven's sake, do not give way to delusions. Think of those who love you best, who will be in despair if ill should befall you."

"Yes, I will think of those who love me best! I must go to him. Dear Mrs. Hartley, I am not losing my senses, but the feeling is so strong upon me that I have no power to resist it. I must go to Alan."

"My child, consider! You cannot go to him. He is in prison."

"I will go and live at the gates until he comes out."

"You must not talk like this. I cannot let you go—you, a woman! What would the world think of you?"

"What does the world think of him? It says he is guilty—when I know that he is not!"

"You cannot know, Lettice. All that was proved against him is that in some way or other, goaded by her reproaches, he stabbed her with his dagger. But that was proved, and you cannot get over it. I can quite believe that he is more unfortunate than maliciously guilty; yet, surely, you must admit that he is ruined."

"Never!" said Lettice, passionately. She could almost have stamped her foot with rage to hear another say what was already in her own mind. But old habits of self-restraint came to her aid. She raised her head proudly as she replied: "A man is never ruined. Alan Walcott has a future."

"He may have a future, dear, but it is one in which we cannot be concerned. Listen to me, Lettice—I do so strongly feel that this is the crisis and turning point of your life! There are lines beyond which no woman who respects herself, or who would be respected by the world, can go. If you do not act with prudence and common sense to-day, you may have to repent it all the rest of your life. You are strong—use your strength to good purpose, and think, for Heaven's sake think, of the courage and self-sacrifice which are expected from women of your breeding and position." She ended with tears in her eyes, for although she spoke conventionally, and as conventional women speak, her heart was full of the truest anxiety and tenderness for her friend.

Lettice was looking out of the window again, as though for inspiration in her difficulty. When she answered, it was with inexpressible sadness and regret.

"You have been so good and kind to me that it cuts my heart to disagree with you in any way. Have I reached such a turning point as you say? Perhaps it is so—but I have been brought to it; I have not wilfully walked up to it. You said that Alan's future was one in which we could not be concerned. What I feel at this moment, more vividly than I ever felt anything in my life, is that I am concerned and involved in his future. I have fought against this, and put it aside, as you, my dear friend, must know. I have tried to forget him—and my shame of the past few weeks has been that I tried to care for some one else. Well, I failed; and see how the very trying has brought me to this clear and irresistible knowledge of my own heart! If I were superstitious, I should say that it was my fate. I don't know what it is—I don't know if my view or your view of my duty is right—but I am quite sure of this, that I shall have to act on my own view. Courage and self-sacrifice—yes! They are primary virtues in a woman; but courage for what? Self-sacrifice for whom?"

"For society! For the world in general!"

"But the world in general has the world to help it. If one man needs a woman's sacrifice, he has only one woman to look to. I am very, very sorry that I cannot go my own way without giving you pain, and if only I could think that by any act which it is in my power to do——"

"I don't know what you mean by going your own way, child; but I hope you will come to a better mind before you take a decided step." Mrs. Hartley was growing thoroughly alarmed.

"Indeed, I have come to the best, the only possible resolution; and the question is, how soon I can be in London. We have been in Italy a long time, have we not?"

"Eleven months."

"Do you wish to stay much longer?"

"I see very plainly, Lettice, that, if I did want to stay, it would end in my being here alone. But I shall not let you travel by yourself. If your interest in Italy has gone, so has mine. We will start on Saturday."

Mrs. Hartley was sorely disappointed, and even angry with Lettice; but she thought that at any rate she ought not to talk with her until they were back again in London. And there was at least a hope that she would be more prudent a week hence than she was to-day.

As for Lettice, she found it very hard to wait. If she had been alone she would have left Florence within an hour of reading Sydney's letter, for her heart was on fire with impatience.

She did not speak to Brooke Dalton again, except in the presence of her friends; but after he and Edith had gone she wrote him another letter to the address which he had given them. In this letter she begged him, as kindly as she could, to consider her last answer as final. "Sydney's note," she said, "has only strengthened my decision. Indeed, it has made me ten times more decided. My heart is not mine to give. You will not expect that I should say more than this. The best thing I can hope from you is that you will judge me charitably, and that if others reproach me you will not join in the chorus."

Poor Brooke Dalton kissed the letter quietly, and said nothing about it; nor did he openly give utterance to the words which entered his mind in reference to Sydney's intervention. Mrs. Hartley silently resolved to see Sydney Campion as soon as she got back to London, and beg him to reason with Lettice, and, if possible, bring her to a better mind. But she was disappointed to find that Sydney was not in town. His marriage had taken place in September and he had gone to Scotland with his wife. She knew that he was on fairly good terms with Lettice, and had pressed her to be present at the wedding, also that Miss Pynsent had sent a very charming and affectionate letter to her future sister-in-law. But whether Lettice had written to him and told him of her intentions and opinions, Mrs. Hartley did not know.