“May I ask why so, Mr. Aaron?” said Eugene, quite undisturbed in his ease.

“Excuse me. If she asks me, I will tell her,” replied the old man. “I will tell no one else.”

“I do not ask you,” said Lizzie, “and I beg you to take me home. Mr. Wrayburn, I have had a bitter trial tonight, and I hope you will not think me ungrateful, or mysterious, or changeable. I am neither; I am wretched. Pray remember what I said to you. Pray, pray, take care.”

“My dear Lizzie,” he returned, in a low voice, bending over her on the other side; “of what? Of whom?”

“Of anyone you have lately seen and made angry.”