“Oh,” said Mr. Carden, “I believe he has no hopes of the kind; it is of you I am thinking, not of him.  It has got about that poor Little had a connection with some girl in humble life, and that he was in love with her, and you in love with him.  That wounds a father’s pride, and makes me grateful to Coventry for his unshaken devotion, whilst others are sneering at my poor child for her innocent love.”

Grace writhed, and the tears ran down her cheeks at this.  “Oh, spare the dead!” she faltered.

Then her father kissed her, and begged her to forgive him; he would avoid all these topics in future:  and so he did, for some time; but what he had said rankled.

A few days after this Coventry came again, and did nothing but soothe Grace with words; only he managed so that Grace should detect him looking very sad when he was not actually employed in cheering her.

She began to pity him a little, and wonder at his devotion.

He had not been gone many hours when another visitor arrived quite unexpectedly—­Mr. Raby.  He came to tell her his own news, and warn her of the difficult game they were now playing at Raby Hall, that she might not thwart it inadvertently.

Grace was much agitated, and shed tears of sympathy.  She promised, with a sigh, to hold no communication with Mrs. Little.  She thought it very hard, but she promised.

In the course of his narrative Mr. Raby spoke very highly of Jael Dence, and of her conduct in the matter.

To this Grace did not respond.  She waited her opportunity, and said, keenly and coldly, “How did she come to be in your house?”

“Well, that is a secret.”

“Can you not trust me with a secret?”

“Oh yes,” said Raby, “provided you will promise faithfully to tell no one.”

Grace promised, and he then told her that Jael Dence, in a moment of desperation, had thrown herself into the river at the back of his house.  “Poor girl!” said he, “her brain was not right at the time.  Heaven keep us all from those moments of despair.  She has got over it now, and nurses and watches my poor sister more like a mother watching her child than a young woman taking care of an old one.  She is the mainspring of the house.”

At all this Grace turned from pale to white, but said nothing; and Raby ran on in praise of Jael, little dreaming what pain his words inflicted.

When he left her, she rose and walked down to the sea; for her tortured spirit gave her body energy.  Hitherto she found she had only suspected; now she was sure.  Hitherto she had feared Henry Little had loved Jael Dence a little; now she was sure he had loved her best.  Jael Dence would not have attempted self-destruction for any man unless he loved her.  The very act proved her claim to him more eloquently than words could do.  Now she believed all—­the anonymous letter—­Mr. Coventry’s report—­the woman’s words who worked in the same factory, and could not