"Oh, great Heaven!" said a voice like that of the one whom Edith knew as
Lieutenant Dudleigh--"oh, great Heaven! it's too much."

"Oh ho!" cried Leon: "so you're going to blubber too, are you? Mind,
now, it's all right if you are only true."

"Oh, Leon, how you wring my heart!" cried the other, in a low, tremulous
voice.

"Lieutenant Dudleigh!" cried Edith again. "Oh, my friend, answer me!
Tell me that it is all a lie. Tell me--"

But Lieutenant Dudleigh flung himself on the stone pavement, and groaned
and sobbed convulsively.

"Come," said Leon, stooping and lifting him up; "you understand all
this. Don't you go on blubbering in this fashion. I don't mind her and
_you_ mustn't. Come, you tell her, for she'll keep yelling after
you all night till you do."

Lieutenant Dudleigh rose at this, and leaned heavily upon Leon's arm.

"You were not--married--to--to--me," said he at last.

"What! Then you too were false all along!" said Edith, in a voice that
seemed to come from a broken heart.

The false friend made no reply.