"And Richard helped to confirm your suspicions, of course?"

"No. He was not--unhappily for me--he was not that sort of man.
He never spoke of the feeling with which he regarded me. It was I
who saw it. I couldn't help seeing it. I did all I could to show
that I was willing to be a sister to him, and that I could never
be anything else. He did not understand me, or he would not, I
can't say which."

"'Would not,' is the most likely, my dear. Go on."

"It might have been as you say. There was a strange, rough
bashfulness about him. He confused and puzzled me. He never spoke
out. He seemed to treat me as if our future lives had been
provided for while we were children. What could I do, Lucy?"

"Do? You could have asked your father to end the difficulty for
you."

"Impossible! You forget what I have just told you. My father was
suffering at that time under the illness which afterward caused
his death. He was quite unfit to interfere."

"Was there no one else who could help you?"

"No one."

"No lady in whom you could confide?"

"I had acquaintances among the ladies in the neighborhood. I had