She stopped again. Cecil was new to making proposals, though not to rejecting them. Cheveley set his teeth to keep in the words that rushed to his lips, and Cecil saw the struggle as she bent her head lower and lower to the saddle, and twisted the reins into a Gordian knot. "Do you--must we--why should----" Fragmentary monosyllables enough, but sufficient to fell his strength. "For God's sake do not tempt me!" he muttered. "You little know----" "I know all!" she whispered softly. "You cannot! My worthless life!--my honor! I could not take such a sacrifice, I would not!----" "But--if my peace----" She could not end her phrase, yet it said enough;--his hand closed on hers. "Your peace! Good God! in _my_ hands! I stay; then--let the world say what it likes!" * * * * * "Drive back; I have changed my mind about going abroad to-day," said Cheveley, as he got into his hansom at Albert Gate. "How soon she has got over it! Girls do," thought Lady Marabout, as Cecil Ormsby came in from her ride with the brightest bloom on her cheeks a June breeze ever fanned there. She laid her hat on the table, flung her gauntlets at Bijou, and threw herself on her knees by Lady Marabout, a saucy smile on her face, though her lashes were wet. "Dear Lady Marabout, I can forgive you now, but you will never forgive me!" Lady Marabout turned white as her point-lace cap, gave a little gasp of paralyzed terror, and pushed back her chair as though a shell had exploded on the hearth-rug. "Cecil! Good Heaven!--you don't mean----" "Yes I do," said Cecil, with a fresh access of color, and a low, soft laugh. Lady Marabout gasped again for breath: "General Ormsby!" was all she could ejaculate. "General Ormsby? What of him? Did you ever know uncle Johnnie refuse to please _me_? And if my money be to interfere with my happiness, and not promote it, as I conceive it its duty and purpose to do, why, I am of age in July, you know, and I shall make a deed of gift of it all to the Soldiers' Home or the Wellington College, and there is only one person who will care for me _then_." Lady Cecil was quite capable of carrying her threat into execution, and Lady Cecil had her own way accordingly, as she had had it from her babyhood. * * * * *