Dismiss it! There have been rumours in Rome--in which even perhaps my aunt has believed.

They are unjust--both to Eleanor and to me.

She would be the first to tell you so.' 'Of course,' said Lucy hurriedly, 'of course,'-- and then did not know what to say, torn as she was between her Puritan dread of falsehood, her natural woman's terror of betraying Eleanor, and her burning consciousness of the man and the personality beside her.
'No!--you still doubt.

You have heard some gossip and you believe it.' He threw away the cigarette with which he had been playing, and came to sit down on the curving marble bench beside her.
'I think you must listen to me,' he said, with a quiet and manly force that became him.

'The friendship between my cousin and me has been unusual, I know.