"To me. You know it. You know it, sir. Had my father been alive; had I any friend in the world to protect me, I do not think you would have dared to speak to me of love." "Were your father, Colonel Hereford, alive, Anne, I should lay the whole case before him, and say—'Judge for yourself; shall, or shall not your daughter be mine?' I fancy he would find the objection less insuperable than you appear to do." I believe I simply stared in answer to this. Calm, good, and noble he looked, standing there with his truthful eyes, speaking his apparently truthful words. It seemed that we must be at cross-purposes. "When you spoke of the bar that existed to your marrying, you put it upon the hinted-at misfortunes, the disgrace attaching to your family, Mr. Chandos. But you never alluded to the real bar." "There is no other bar. But for that, I would like to make you my wife to-morrow. What have you got in your head?" I knew what I was beginning to have in my temper. "If you continue to detain me here, sir, and to say these things, I will go straight with my complaint to Mrs. Chandos." "To Mrs. Chandos! What good would that do?" he coolly questioned. "Oh, sir, spare me! I did not think you would behave so. Don't you see, putting me and my feelings out of the question, how all this wrongs _her?_" He looked at me strangely, his countenance a puzzle. "What has Mrs. Chandos to do with it? She is nothing to you or to me." "She is your wife, sir." His elbow displaced some ornament on the mantelpiece; he had to turn and save it from falling. Then he faced me again. "My wife, did you say?" And very much ashamed I had felt to say it: with my hot face and my eyes bent on the carpet. "Mrs. Chandos is no wife of mine. I never was married yet. Did you go to sleep and dream it?" Ah, how that poor foolish heart of mine stood still! Was it possible that Mrs. Penn had been mistaken?—that my misery had been without foundation; my supposed offered insults only fancied ones. No condemned criminal, called forth from his cell to hear the reprieve read that will restore to him the life he has forfeited, could experience a more intense revulsion of joy than I did then. I put my hands up in front of him: it was no moment for affectation or reticence. "Tell me the truth," I gasped; "the truth as before heaven? Is, or is not, Mrs. Chandos your wife?" He bent his head a little forward, speaking clearly and distinctly, with an emphasis on every word. "Mrs. Chandos is my sister-in-law. She is my brother's wife. It is the truth, in the presence of heaven." I covered my face with my hands to hide the blinding tears that fell on my cheeks of shame. To have made so dreadful a mistake!—and to have spoken of it! Mr. Chandos took the hands away, holding them and me before him. "Having said so much, Anne, you must say more. Has this been the cause of your changed conduct? Whence could the strange notion have arisen?"