"Usually he is not anxious to have me go so far from the fort; and now he seemed to think I would enjoy this dance to-night.

I wonder what Bessie has been telling him." Betty threw some wood on the smouldering fire in the little stone grate and sat down to think.

Like every one who has a humiliating secret, Betty was eternally suspicious and feared the very walls would guess it.

Swift as light came the thought that her brother and his wife had suspected her secret and had been talking about her, perhaps pitying her.

With this thought came the fear that if she had betrayed herself to the Colonel's wife she might have done so to others.