months. You say I know but half the truth. Tell me the whole and I will
spare you."

If ever a man was tempted to betray a trust it was Treherne then. A
word, and Octavia might be his; silence, and she might be lost; for this
woman was in earnest, and possessed the power to ruin his good name
forever. The truth leaped to his lips and would have passed them, had
not his eye fallen on the portrait of Jasper's father. This man had
loved and sheltered the orphan all his life, had made of him a son, and,
dying, urged him to guard and serve and save the rebellious youth he
left, when most needing a father's care.

"I promised, and I will keep my promise at all costs," sighed Treherne,
and with a gesture full of pathetic patience he waved the fair tempter
from him, saying steadily, "I will never tell you, though you rob me of
that which is dearer than my life. Go and work your will, but remember
that when you might have won the deepest gratitude of the man you
profess to love, you chose instead to earn his hatred and contempt."

Waiting for no word of hers, he took refuge in his room, and Edith
Snowdon sank down upon the couch, struggling with contending emotions of
love and jealousy, remorse and despair. How long she sat there she could
not tell; an approaching step recalled her to herself, and looking up
she saw Octavia. As the girl approached down the long vista of the
drawing rooms, her youth and beauty, innocence and candor touched that
fairer and more gifted woman with an envy she had never known before.
Something in the girl's face struck her instantly: a look of peace and
purity, a sweet serenity more winning than loveliness, more impressive
than dignity or grace. With a smile on her lips, yet a half-sad,
half-tender light in her eyes, and a cluster of pale winter roses in her