Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/316

 and I knew, all those years ago, when I had to leave you, and go back to England, that she was your most intimate friend, although you were much younger. I couldn't resist talking of you to her, after we met—she and I—and she soon guessed how the land lay. One day she asked if I were really in love with you, and I answered 'yes,' but that you didn't want our engagement announced till your nineteenth birthday. Millicent seemed to hesitate, on hearing this, but presently said there was a thing it was her duty, as my cousin, to let me know, rather than that my life should be spoiled. Before I could answer, she warned me that you had no intention of marrying me. You had written her all about the affair, she said, and she couldn't help being indignant about the way you had acted. You were her friend, but I was her cousin, and blood was thicker than water. 'Terry was only playing you off against some one else, my poor Ian,' Milly explained. 'She wanted Lord Hatherley, and was trying to bring him to the point of making him jealous of you.'

"Of course I answered that she must be mistaken. I had perfect faith in Miss Ricardo. 'In justice to me, you must read Terry's letter,' she exclaimed; and with that, before giving me time to think, she whipped a letter out of her pocket. I could have sworn on my life that it was your handwriting—your writing that made my heart beat to see, even on an envelope. I