"
"Then it is all over with him!" cried Mary, in despair. "O Letty!
what _is_ to be done? Why didn't you tell me before? He'll
be madly in love with her by this time! They always are."
"But where's the harm, Mary? She's a very handsome lady, and of a
good family."
"We're all of good enough family," said Mary, a little
petulantly. "But that Miss Yolland--Letty--that Miss Yolland--
she's a bad woman, Letty."
"I never heard you say such a hard word of anybody before, Mary!
It frightens me to hear you."
"It's a true word of her, Letty."
"How can you be so sure?"
Mary was silent. There was that about Letty that made the maiden
shrink from telling the married woman what she knew. Besides, in
so far as Tom had been concerned, she could not bring herself,
even without mentioning his name, to talk of him to his wife:
there was no evil to be prevented and no good to be done by it.
If Letty was ever to know those passages in his life, she must
hear them first in high places, and from the lips of the
repentant man himself!
"I can not tell you, Letty," she said. "You know the two bonds of
friendship are the right of silence and the duty of speech. I
dare say you have some things which, truly as I know you love me,
you neither wish nor feel at liberty to tell me."
Letty thought of what had so lately passed between her and her
cousin Godfrey, and felt almost guilty.
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