"I refuse to go into it again." She is deadly pale now. Her bloodless lips almost refuse to let the words go through them. "You mean by that, that in spite of my oath you still cling to your belief that I am lying to you?" His face is livid. There is something almost dangerous about it, but Lady Baltimore has come of too old and good a race to be frightened into submission. Raising one small, slender hand, she lays it upon his breast, and, with a little haughty upturning of her shapely head, pushes him from her. "I have told you I refuse to go into it," says she, with superb self-control. "How long do you intend to keep me here? When may I be allowed to leave the room?" There is distinct defiance in the clear glance she casts at him. Baltimore draws a long breath, and then bursts into a strange laugh. "Why, when you will," says he, shrugging his shoulders. He makes a graceful motion of his hand toward the door. "Shall I open it for you? But a word still let me say--if you are not in too great a hurry! Christianity, now, my fair saint, so far as ever I could hear or read, has been made up of mercy. Now, you are merciless! Would you mind letting me know how you reconcile one----" "You perversely mistake me--I am no saint. I do not"--coldly--"profess to be one. I am no such earnest seeker after righteousness as you maliciously represent me. All I desire is honesty of purpose, and a decent sense of honor--honor that makes decency. That is all. For the rest, I am only a poor woman who loved once, and was--how many times deceived? That probably I shall never know." Her sad, sad eyes, looking at him, grow suddenly full of tears. "Isabel! My meeting with that woman--that time"--vehemently--"in town was accidental! I----It was the merest chance----" "Don't!" says she, raising her hand, with such a painful repression of her voice as to render it almost a whisper; "I have told you it is useless. I have heard too much to believe anything now. I shall never, I think," very sadly, "believe in any one again. You have murdered faith in me. Tell this tale of yours to some one else--some one willing to believe--to"--with a terrible touch of scorn--"Lady Swansdown, for example." "Why do you bring her into the discussion?" asks he, turning quickly to her. Has she heard anything? That scene in the garden that now seems to fill him with self-contempt. What a _betise_ it was! And what did it amount to? Nothing! Lady Swansdown, he is honestly convinced, cares as little for him as he for her. And at this moment it is borne in upon him that he would give the embraces of a thousand such as she for one kind glance from the woman before him. "I merely mentioned her as a possible person who might listen to you," with a slight lifting of her shoulders. "A mere idle suggestion. You will pardon me saying that this has been an idle discussion altogether. You began by denouncing my brother to me, and now----"