"True--but this is most unfortunate! Do you see my position?"
"Believe me, I'm fully informed on the matter, so that I'll not put you to the pain of relating it."
She bowed her silent thanks, and then continued:--
"The fact of this lady's marriage ties my hands. Deeply as she has wronged me, have I any right to ruin her husband's life by her exposure? If she has reformed----"
"My dear Madame Darcy, pray disabuse your mind of two misconceptions: the lady in question, Miss Fitzgerald, has not reformed, and I doubt if the marriage is legal. There's some trick about it."
"What you've told me leaves me free to act where my own honour is concerned; but I naturally feel a delicacy about interfering in Mr. Stanley's private affairs."
"Believe me, I fully appreciate your hesitation; but that there may be no misunderstanding between us regarding this important matter, let me tell you something of my friend's present position. I ask you to accept my word for it, that he's not as yet bound himself to Miss Fitzgerald; but his high sense of honour may lead him to do so, if he knows nothing definite against her."
"I see, and you want me to show him these letters?" and she took a little packet from her bosom.
"No, I wouldn't subject you to such a trying ordeal. I ask you to let me show the letters to him. Remember that you've told him that you have them."
"Yes," she said, after a moment's hesitation. "I think you're right. You assure me that he does not love her, and that there's positive danger that he may marry her from a sense of duty."
"Then take them," she said, giving him the letters; "but promise me that no one besides yourselves shall see them, and that they shall be safely returned to me by to-morrow."
"I promise," he replied, "and take my assurance that in doing this you've more than repaid him for any services he may have done you."
"You cannot persuade me to believe that; but I'm thankful to help where I'm able, though it be only a little, and I am even more thankful that he has such a strong champion in you."
"Thank you," he said heartily. "Stanley's a good fellow; too good and too unsophisticated for the people he's thrown with, and I'm going to save him from himself if I can, both now and in the future."