Jane made no answer.

Lucy moved uncomfortably in her chair.  She had never, in all her life, seen her sister in any such mood.  She was not so much astonished over her lack of enthusiasm regarding the engagement; that she had expected—­at least for the first few days, until she could win her over to her own view.  It was the deadly poise—­the icy reserve that disturbed her.  This was new.

“Lucy!” Again Jane stopped and looked out of the window.  “You remember the letter I wrote you some years ago, in which I begged you to tell Ellen’s father about Archie and Barton Holt?”

Lucy’s eyes flashed.

“Yes, and you remember my answer, don’t you?” she answered sharply.  “What a fool I would have been, dear, to have followed your advice!”

Jane went straight on without heeding the interruption or noticing Lucy’s changed tone.

“Do you intend to tell Max?”

“I tell Max!  My dear, good sister, are you crazy!  What should I tell Max for?  All that is dead and buried long ago!  Why do you want to dig up all these graves?  Tell Max—­that aristocrat!  He’s a dear, sweet fellow, but you don’t know him.  He’d sooner cut his hand off than marry me if he knew!”

“I’m afraid you will have to—­and this very day,” rejoined Jane in a calm, measured tone.

Lucy moved uneasily in her chair; her anxiety had given way to a certain ill-defined terror.  Jane’s voice frightened her.

“Why?” she asked in a trembling voice.

“Because Captain Holt or someone else will, if you don’t.”

“What right has he or anybody else to meddle with my affairs?” Lucy retorted in an indignant tone.

“Because he cannot help it.  I intended to keep the news from you for a time, but from what you have just told me you had best hear it now.  Barton Holt is alive.  He has been in Brazil all these years, in the mines.  He has written to his father that he is coming home.”

All the color faded from Lucy’s cheeks.

“Bart!  Alive!  Coming home!  When?”

“He will be here day after to-morrow; he is at Amboy, and will come by the weekly packet.  What I can do I will.  I have worked all my life to save you, and I may yet, but it seems now as if I had reached the end of my rope.”

“Who said so?  Where did you hear it?  It
can’t be true!”

Jane shook her head.  “I wish it was not true—­ but it is—­every word of it.  I have read his letter.”

Lucy sank back in her chair, her cheeks livid, a cold perspiration moistening her forehead.  Little lines that Jane had never noticed began to gather about the corners of her mouth; her eyes were wide open, with a strained, staring expression.  What she saw was Max’s eyes looking into her own, that same cold, cynical expression on his face she had sometimes seen when speaking of other women he had known.

“What’s he coming for?” Her voice was thick and barely audible.