“Neither do I,” returned the girl, resolutely.

“We shall see,” said Mrs. Eveleigh.  “Do you know,” she added, “that Mr. Edmonson came yesterday when you were out?”

“Yes.”

Then there fell between the pair as long an interval of silence as Mrs. Eveleigh ever permitted where she was concerned.  She broke it by asking, energetically:—­

“Elizabeth, if you really believed that you were not Mr. Archdale’s wife, why, in the name of wonder, did you go and put your whole fortune into his business?  And why did your father let you?”

“My father had no legal right to interfere,” said the girl, ignoring the first question, “and he did not choose to strain his authority.  When was he ever unkind to me?”

“I think he was then, decidedly.”  And the speaker nodded her head with emphasis.  “But you have not told me why you did it,” she continued.

Elizabeth was silent a moment.  “I had been the means of the whole thing being discovered,” she said, “and I had hurt him enough already.”

“And he let you risk your whole fortune just because you had happened to put your finger through a hole in the hall tapestry.”

“No,” cried Elizabeth, “he did no such thing.  He is very angry with me now because I invested it; he is not willing, even though he knows that it’s for Katie’s sake.”

“I thought you said just now that it was for Mr. Archdale’s.”  Elizabeth looked at her, and smiled triumphantly.

“I did,” she answered.  “It’s the same thing; I have always told you so.”

“Um!” said Mrs. Eveleigh, and returned to the attack.  “If he wouldn’t take the money, how could you give it?” The girl was silent.  “It was the father, I know; they say a penny never comes amiss to him.”

“How did you find this out, Cousin Patience?” But Mrs. Eveleigh laughed instead of answering.  “You have not spoken of it?” cried Elizabeth.

“Not a word.  Why, I don’t want to proclaim any one of my own family a goose.”  The only answer was a smile of satisfaction.  “You don’t mind being called a goose, I see,” pursued the speaker.

“Not at all.  I know it’s often true.  Only it doesn’t happen to be true here.”

Though Mrs. Eveleigh had so openly criticised Elizabeth, it would have gone ill with any one who had dared to follow her example.  She was often annoyed by things in Elizabeth; but she believed in the girl’s truth more than she did in her own.  And there she was quite right.  Now she began to talk about the portrait scene, and declared that Mr. Edmonson looked very handsome standing beside the old picture that he so much resembled.

“That portrait was Colonel Archdale’s grandfather, his mother’s father, Mr. Edmonson,” explained Elizabeth, perceiving that her companion’s ideas were somewhat mixed.  And then Mrs. Eveleigh confessed that she had been trying to explain about the portrait and the relationship, and that though she had talked learnedly about the matter, she had been a little confused in her own mind.