“My poor little Jean, you do need rest. We wear you out, among us, and you never complain. I should have come to bring you home, but Lucia detained me, and when I got away I saw my uncle had forestalled me. I shall be jealous of the old gentleman, if he is so devoted. Jean, tell me one thing before we part; I am free as air, now, and have a right to speak. Do you love me? Am I the happy man who has won your heart? I dare to think so, to believe that this telltale face of yours has betrayed you, and to hope that I have gained what poor Ned and wild Sydney have lost.” “Before I answer, tell me of your interview with Lucia. I have a right to know,” said Jean. Coventry hesitated, for pity and remorse were busy at his heart when he recalled poor Lucia’s grief. Jean was bent on hearing the humiliation of her rival. As the young man paused, she frowned, then lifted up her face wreathed in softest smiles, and laying her hand on his arm, she said, with most effective emphasis, half shy, half fond, upon his name, “Please tell me, Gerald!” He could not resist the look, the touch, the tone, and taking the little hand in his, he said rapidly, as if the task was distasteful to him, “I told her that I did not, could not love her; that I had submitted to my mother’s wish, and, for a time, had felt tacitly bound to her, though no words had passed between us. But now I demanded my liberty, regretting that the separation was not mutually desired.” “And she--what did she say? How did she bear it?” asked Jean, feeling in her own woman’s heart how deeply Lucia’s must have been wounded by that avowal. “Poor girl! It was hard to bear, but her pride sustained her to the end. She owned that no pledge tied me, fully relinquished any claim my past behavior had seemed to have given her, and prayed that I might find another woman to love me as truly, tenderly as she had done. Jean, I felt like a villain; and yet I never plighted my word to her, never really loved her, and had a perfect right to leave her, if I would.” “Did she speak of me?” “Yes.” “What did she say?” “Must I tell you?” “Yes, tell me everything. I know she hates me and I forgive her, knowing that I should hate any woman whom _you_ loved.” “Are you jealous, dear?” “Of you, Gerald?” And the fine eyes glanced up at him, full of a brilliancy that looked like the light of love. “You make a slave of me already. How do you do it? I never obeyed a woman before. Jean, I think you are a witch. Scotland is the home of weird, uncanny creatures, who take lovely shapes for the bedevilment of poor weak souls. Are you one of those fair deceivers?” “You are complimentary,” laughed the girl. “I _am_ a witch, and one day my disguise will drop away and you will see me as I am, old, ugly, bad and lost. Beware of me in time. I’ve warned you. Now love me at your peril.”