"I beg pardon," he says at last. "I hope you will accept my apologies; but I was told that Lady Estelle was here, and I wish to see her." "She will return very soon," replies Doris. The words are brief and simple, but the eyes seem to say, "stay with me till she comes." "Have I the pleasure of speaking to a visitor at the Castle?" he asks, with a bow. Then she blushes, feeling more ashamed than ever of Brackenside and its belongings. "I came to see the Castle," she replies; "and Lady Estelle is kind enough to show me the flowers." He understood at once. Then, saying to himself that in all probability she was a _protegee_ of my lady's, the daughter of some tenant-farmer, who had, as a great treat, been promised a sight of the wonders of the Castle--he was perfectly at his ease then. There was no such admirer of fair women in all the world as Lord Vivianne, and this was the fairest he had ever seen. A farmer's daughter, without the prestige of rank and wealth to save her--fair prey for him. Had she been the daughter of a duke, an earl, a baron, he would simply have laid his plans for flirting with her; as it was, he sat down and deliberately said to himself that heart and soul should be his. Some little faults lay at her door. Her eyes invited him; they said things that the lips would not have dared to utter; they were full of the sweetest and most subtle invitation, gracefully veiled by the long, dark lashes. Lord Charles had done as he would all his life, and now that his eyes rested on this fairest of all faces, it was not likely that he would let anything baffle him. "You have a beautiful resting-place," he said. "I have never seen anything to equal the beauty of this plant." "It is very beautiful," she replied; "to me it seems like fairyland." "I have been staying here for a week," he continued, "and I have not seen half the beauty of the Castle yet." "You have been staying here!" she said, with unconscious stress on the word "here." "Yes; I admire the scenery hereabouts. I think it is almost about the finest we have." "I have never been out of this county," she replied, "so I cannot tell." He raised his dark brows in surprise. "You have never been away from home?" he said; "what a pity, and what a shame!" "Why is it a shame?" she asked, with another of those sweet glances that invited him to woo her. "Providence does not send such a face as yours in the world once in a century," he replied, "and then all the world should see it." Doris looked pleased, not shy or timid; she was perfectly at home with him, and he saw it. "I must introduce myself," he said, "as Lady Estelle does not return--I am Lord Charles Vivianne--if I dare, I should ask to whom I have the honor of speaking."