clear it up, if I hadn't promised my father just at that time--" She
stopped, unable to control her voice longer. Her lips were quivering.

"Speaking of your father," said Larcher, "you must have got a subsequent
letter from Davenport, because he sent it registered, and the receipt
came back with your father's signature."

"No, I never got that, either," said Florence, before the inference
struck her. When it did, she gazed from one to the other with a helpless,
wounded look, and blushed as if the shame were her own.

Edna Hill's eyes blazed with indignation, then softened in pity for her
friend. She turned to Larcher in a very calling-to-account manner.

"Why didn't you tell me all this before?"

"I didn't think it was necessary. And besides, he never told me about
the letters till the night before last."

"And all this time that poor young man has thought Florence tossed him
over because of some ridiculous notion about bad luck?"

"Well, more or less,--and the general fickleness of the sex."

"General fick--! And you, having seen Florence, let him go on thinking
so?"

"But I didn't know Miss Kenby was the lady he meant. If you'd only told
me it was for her you wanted news of him--"