tell you that I fear we cannot make our case enough to come into
court. I took the opinion of the first man we have. I am sorry to
say he gives it against us. I am not selfish," he added, with real
emotion, "and I am sorry indeed, for your sake, dearest Miss Bruce."

He meant to have called her "Maud"; but the beautiful lips tightened,
and the delicate eyebrows came down very straight and stern over the
deep eyes in which he had learned to read his fate. He would wait for
a better opportunity, he thought, of using the dear, familiar name.

She took small notice of his trouble.


"Has there been no mismanagement?" she asked, almost angrily; "no
papers lost? no foul play? Have you done your best?"

"I have, indeed," he answered meekly. "After all, is it not for my own
interest as much as yours? Are they not henceforth to be in common?"

She ignored the question altogether; she seemed to be thinking of
something else. While they paced up and down a walk screened from the
Square windows by trees and shrubs already clothed in the tender,
quivering foliage of spring, she kept silence for several seconds,
looking straight before her with a sterner expression than he could
yet remember to have seen on the face he adored. Presently she spoke
in a hard, determined voice--

"I _am_ disappointed. Yes, Mr. Ryfe, I don't mind owning I am bitterly
and grievously disappointed. There, I suppose it's not your fault, so
you needn't look black about it; and I dare say you did the best