"Oh, you don't know me," said Camilla, with a broken sound in her voice; "you think me pretty, you like me. Perhaps I fascinate you, but you don't know me. I ... I am not going to refuse to be your wife," she said, she spoke with her teeth half closed; "but I don't want any false pretences, I don't want you to imagine things about me that do not exist. I am full of faults, I am not a bit good. You don't know," she opened her eyes for a minute, and looked at him, "you don't know how un-good I am, and you ... you are so good. You will want to make me like yourself." "God forbid," said Rupert Haverford. He was so near to her now that he almost touched her. She was trembling with excitement. "Oh! I don't mean that you would do it unkindly, only that you look at things differently. I am so afraid you will be disappointed in me, but ..." the tears were running down her cheeks, "I know one thing about you. I know that you are true, and that if you give your word it will be your bond." Her lips quivered. "The children," she said brokenly; and then she was lying with her face pressed down on his breast, and his arms were folded about her. What he said she hardly heard, she was only conscious in that moment of a great, a wonderful relief. It was as though some gnawing pain that had fretted into her very soul had been lulled; that a beautiful rest had followed on the pain. She closed her eyes, and she nestled nearer to him. Then, little by little, she came back to the reality, and her heart leapt in her throat, she tried to free herself, but those strong arms held her tightly. Some one was kissing her brow, and close beside her she could feel the quick beating of a strong heart. Once she had said to herself, "He will love me too much." And now she had accepted this love; she had bartered her freedom for it.... The thought of the bondage burned her, yet it had come about so naturally. "I did not seek him," she said to herself; "he came, he would have come a little later, but he came now ... just when I needed some one ... something...." How his heart beat!... How strong he was! When he kissed her brow and hair and eyes she could feel his lips quiver. He would love her too much! He did not ask her to kiss him in return. He was so good ... so generous! He had given her back her children. For that she could have knelt at his feet. But she almost prayed that he would not ask for her kisses ... not yet ... not yet.... CHAPTER X On the following day the children and their governess went down to Yelverton. There was so much excitement and bustle in getting away that Caroline had little time to realize that she was tired. She saw nothing of Mrs. Lancing, who was in her room. The children were told to keep very quiet because mother had a bad headache. It was Dennis who had communicated the news to Caroline that she was to take Betty and Baby down to Mrs. Brenton's delightful country house by an early afternoon train.