with, if you will force it from me, my once trusting affection."
"You do not know," interrupted Mrs. Courtenaye, "the circumstances in which he was placed."
"I believe that I do," returned the other, coldly.
Mrs. Courtenaye looked amazed; a sudden fear, that her story was not the profound secret that she supposed it to be, came over her, and she asked, faintly—"What do you suppose those circumstances to have been?"
"Embarrassments," returned Ethel, with an expression of as much scorn as her sweet face would express, "from which his cousin's wealth set him free."
"Oh, you are quite wrong!" cried his mother; "no love of fortune, nor of ambition, could have tempted Norbourne to desert you. Little, indeed, do you know his high and generous nature, when you suppose that he could be actuated by an interested motive."
"Was it, then," asked Ethel, faintly, "love for his cousin?"
