Robert Noel looked up in wonder. There was his beautiful niece kneeling at his feet, her eyes dim with tears. "Uncle," she was saying, "look at me, listen to me. I want to thank you. I want you always to remember that on this night I knelt at your feet and thanked you with a grateful heart for all you have ever done for me." "Why, my lady lass," he replied, "you have always been to me as a child of my own," he replied. "A tiresome child," she said, half laughing, half crying. "See. I take this dear, brown hand, so hard with work, and I kiss it, uncle, and thank you from my heart." He could not recover himself, so to speak. He looked at her in blank, wordless amazement. "In the years to come," she continued, "when you think of me, you must say to yourself, that, no matter what I did, I loved you." "No matter what you did you loved me," he repeated. "Yes, I shall remember that." She kissed the toil-worn face, leaving him so entirely bewildered that the only fear was lest he might sit up all night trying to forget it. Then she went to her room, but not to sleep--her heart beat, every pulse thrilled. This was to be the last night in her old home--the last of her girlish life; to-morrow she would be Lady Chandos--wife of the young lover whom she loved with all her heart and soul. The birds woke her with their song, it was their wedding-day. She would not see Robert Noel again; he took his breakfast before six and went off to the fields again. She had but to dress herself and go to the station. Oheton was some three miles from the station, but on a summer's morning that was a trifle. They were all three there at last--Sir Frank looking decidedly vexed and cross, Lord Chandos happy as the day was long, and Leone beautiful as a picture. "Look," said the young lordling to his friend, "have I no excuse?" Sir Frank looked long and earnestly at the beautiful southern face. "Yes," he replied; "so far as beauty and grace can form an excuse, you have one; but, Lance, if I loved that girl a thousand times better than my life, I should not marry her." "Why?" asked Lord Chandos, with a laugh. "Because she has a tragedy in her life. She could not be happy. She will neither have a happy life nor a happy death." "My dear Frank, do not prophesy such evil on our wedding-day." "I do not mean to prophesy, I say what I think; it is a beautiful face, full of poetry and passion, but it is also full of power and unrest." "You shall not look at her again if you say such things," cried Lord Chandos.