"The _words_ are of no great importance," said Lawleigh; "the fact seems sufficiently clear; and as I gave Sir Stratford my congratulations on his happiness, I must now offer them to you, on the brightness of your prospects, and the shortness of your memory." "Few can appreciate the value of the latter quality so well as yourself--your congratulations on the other subject are as uncalled for as your taunts--I must return home." She rose to depart, and her face and figure had resumed all the grace and dignity which had formerly characterized her beauty. "One word, Lady Alice!" said Lawleigh; "look round--it was here--one little year ago, that I believed myself the happiest, and felt myself the most fortunate, of men. This spot was the witness of vows--sincerer on one side than any ever registered in heaven--on another, of vows more fleeting than the shadows of the leaves that danced on the greensward that calm evening in June, when first I told you that I loved you: the leaves have fallen--the vows are broken. Alice!--may you be happy--farewell!" "If you desire it, be it so--but before we part, it is right you should know all. Whatever answer my mother may have given to Sir Stratford Manvers, to that answer I am no party. I do not love him: and shall never marry him. Your congratulations, therefore, to both of us, were premature, and I trust the same description will not apply to those I now offer to Mr Lawleigh and Lady Mary Rosley." "To me?--to Lady Mary?--what does this mean?" "It means that your confidential friend, Sir Stratford, has betrayed your secret--that I know your duplicity, and admire the art with which you conceal your unfaithfulness by an attempt to cast the blame of it on me." "As I live----Alice! Alice! hear me," cried Lawleigh, stepping after the retreating girl; "I will explain--you are imposed on." A hand was laid on his arm---- "He!--fairly caught, by Jupiter! whither away?" said Sir Stratford Manvers. "Thou'st sprung fair game i' the forest, 'faith--I watched her retreat--a step like a roebuck--a form like a Venus"---- "Unhand me, villain, or in an instant my sword shall drink the blood of thy cowardly heart." "Fair words! thou'st been studying the rantipoles of Will Shakspeare, Hal. What is't, man? Is thy bile at boiling heat because I have lit upon thee billing and cooing with the forester's fair niece--poh! man--there be brighter eyes than hers, however bright they be." "Now then, we have met," said Lawleigh, in a voice of condensed passion--"met where none shall hear us--met where none shall see us--met where none shall part us--Ha! dost thou look on me without a blush--the man you have injured--the friend who trusted--the enemy who will slay?--draw!"