"Then I must trust to your discretion; I can have no other confidant; I myself am not fit to judge. My mind is darkened--you may be right--I think so." "One word more,--she may discredit my tale, if unsupported. Will you write one line to me to say that I am authorized to reveal the secret, and that it is known only to me? I will not use it unless I should think it absolutely required." Hastily and mechanically Maltravers wrote a few words to the effect of what Lumley had suggested. "I will inform you," he said to Vargrave as he gave him the paper, "of whatever spot may become my asylum; and you can communicate to me all that I dread and long to hear; but let no man know the refuge of despair!" There was positively a tear in Vargrave's cold eye,--the only tear that had glistened there for many years; he paused irresolute, then advanced, again halted, muttered to himself, and turned aside. "As for the world," Lumley resumed, after a pause, "your engagement has been public,--some public account of its breach must be invented. You have always been considered a proud man; we will say that it was low birth on the side of both mother and father (the last only just discovered) that broke off the alliance!" Vargrave was talking to the deaf; what cared Maltravers for the world? He hastened from the room, threw himself into his carriage, and Vargrave was left to plot, to hope, and to aspire.