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372 in Bell's light way of referring to him. And it was with a real sense of relief that she threw the letter into the fire after having read Tom all of it except the last paragraph.

"That 's the first time in my life," thought Susan "that I ever had anything I did n't want Tom to see."

The consciousness of it hurt her to the core, and still more, she felt the hurt of it the next morning. She had been talking with Tom about Mrs. Balloure's death, and saying that she hoped the professor would now marry a woman he could love.

"Well, he can't have you, Sue," said Tom, dryly.

Susan gazed at him in wonder.

"Why, Tom Lawton!" she said, "what do you mean?"

Tom looked at her with a grave face.

"I think you would have married him, Sue?"

"Never!" exclaimed Sue, "and it is horrid of you to say such a thing. I never trusted Professor Balloure, and besides"—Sue stopped, colored—"I think I always loved you, Tom."

This speech of Tom's rankled in Sue's mind all day. It troubled her by its reflected implication as to the past. During all those years had Tom really believed that she loved Professor Balloure? Was that the reason he had left her so free from the urging with which men usually seek women to marry them? Had he—had her frank,