The earl did not profess to be a man of sentiment. As a rule, he considered love a kind of weakness to which one was especially liable in youth, but this wondrous love of Earle Moray's impressed him greatly. He had decided to drive himself to the station to meet his young guest, to whom he desired to show all honor; then Lady Linleigh had said it would be less embarrassing for them to meet alone. "What a fund of sentiment you have, Estelle," laughed the earl. "By all means, arrange a _tete-a-tete_ for them. My honest belief is that women never tire of love-stories." He did not know how such speeches as these jarred upon the tender, sensitive heart of his wife. But Lady Linleigh was considerate. "Doris," she said to the proud young beauty, "it is some time since you have seen Earle, and he will perhaps feel some restraint in my presence, and not talk to you as freely as he would in my absence; I will leave you to receive him." And Doris laughed with some of the earl's half-contempt for sentiment. Yet she owned to herself that she was really glad there was no one to see poor Earle's extravagant delight and wild worship of her. In the burning intensity of his desire to see her, all other things were entirely lost. It never occurred to him that the Earl of Linleigh had purposely put himself to inconvenience to meet him at the railway station; he never gave even a passing thought to the grand carriage, the liveried servants, the magnificent mansion; he thought only of Doris--the birds sang of her, the wind whispered her name. Lord Linleigh smiled more than once as his remarks were unheard, his questions unanswered. After all, there was something very beautiful, half-divine, in such love. He envied the young poet who felt it and the girl who was its object. He understood that all the glories of Linleigh were for the present quite lost on Earle. When they reached the Court, the earl looked at the poet with a smile. "If you were an ordinary visitor," he said, "I should suggest the dining-room and instant refreshment; but knowing you to be far away from all such earthly matters, I merely mention them. My daughter, the Lady Doris, is in the drawing-room there--will you join her?" Earle had longed with the intensity of longing to see her again. His life had been one long fever, one fire of desire, one constant thought of her; yet, when he stood once more in her beautiful presence, he was mute, dumb. She smiled at him, and held out her white, jeweled hands to him. "Earle," she said, and at the sound of her voice his whole soul seemed to wake up. "Earle," she repeated; and the next moment he held those white hands in his, he drew her to him, he kissed her face, her brow. It was pitiful to see a strong man's soul so bound down with a mighty love.