The tears were raining down her cheeks as she spoke. Maurice looked at her with wistful tenderness. "Can you ask that question when you have _such_ a father?" he asked. "And I--have I done anything to deserve your want of trust?" She could only sob out incoherent words by way of answer. "Not you--not my father--I was thinking--of others--others I have trusted and been deceived in." "Oliver Trent," he said--not as a question so much as by way of sad assertion. She drew her handkerchief away from her eyes immediately, and gazed at him through her tears, with flushed cheeks and panting breath. What did he mean? He did not leave her long in doubt. "Kingston--Mrs. Trent--has told a strange story," he said. "She avers that Oliver was false--false to my poor little sister who believed in him so entirely--false to himself and false to us. They say you knew of this. She says that he--he made love to you, that he asked you to marry him--to run away with him indeed--so late as last Saturday. She had hidden herself between the folding-doors in order to hear what went on. Lesley, is this true?" She was white enough now. She cast one appealing glance at his face, and then said, almost inaudibly-- "Don't tell Ethel." "Then it was true?" "Quite true!" "Oh, my God!" cried Maurice, involuntarily. He did not use the words with any profane intention: they escaped his lips as a sort of cry of agony, of protest, almost of entreaty. He had hoped until this moment that Lesley would be able to deny this charge. When she acknowledged its truth, the conviction of Oliver's falsity, the suspicion of Lesley's faith, smote him like a blow. He drew back from her a little and looked at her steadfastly. Lesley raised her candid, innocent eyes to his, and, after a moment's silence, made her defence. "I could not help it. If Kingston speaks the truth, she will tell you that. He locked the door so that I could not get out, and then ... I said I would never speak to him again. I was never so angry--so ashamed--in all my life. You must not think that I--I too--was false to Ethel. She is my friend, and I never dreamed of taking him away from her. I never cared--in that way--for him, and even if I had----" "You never cared? Did you not love him, too?" "No! no, indeed! I hated him. If Kingston says so she is lying about me, as she is lying about my father. You say that you do not believe her when she speaks against him: surely you won't believe her when she speaks against me? Can't you trust my father's daughter, as well as my father?" The voice was almost passionate in its pleading: the lovely eyes were eloquent of reproach. Maurice felt his whole being quiver: he was shaken to the very depths. Why should she plead to him in this way if she had no love at all for _him_? Why should she be so anxious that he should trust her? And did he not? He could not look into her face and think for one moment that she lied.