"Why do you come to me with this request? Have you not been paying court to the Marquis of Ducie's daughter all summer? I ask you this before I can assure myself that your avowal is an honor to me. Your answer cannot influence in the slightest my decision." "I give you my word of honor, Miss Walsingham, that I have not been paying court to Lady Juliana Ducie; if you wish to know why, I found that her heartless desertion of St. Udo Brand, after he lost his property, outweighed with me her fascination; and, having accidentally become acquainted with the whole story, I naturally preferred to shun the fawning lip and clasping hand, and the craven heart of a Judas in woman's lovely seeming, that I might find her contrast in Margaret Walsingham." "Do not mention the dead," said Margaret, deeply moved. "I can never, never forget that I was the unwilling cause of his early death." She was weak and exhausted, though as yet she did not know it, and she bowed her head to weep in an abandonment of grief, which came upon her unawares and would not be set aside. His grace stopped with folded arms to look at her. Here was the woman who was enriched by the death of a man who had insulted her, mourning his untimely end with bitter tears. A vision of the woman who had plighted him her troth rose up to confront this grief-shaken figure with decorous sighs, and shallow regrets, and heartless unconcern, and he put away the red-lipped siren from his thoughts with an execration of scorn, and clung anew to faithful Margaret. "Should it be ten years hence that you relent, let me try my fate a second time," he cried, grasping her hand in his increased fervor of admiration. "Leave me," murmured Margaret. "I have given you my answer--crown your acts of kindness by leaving me." The wind swept over the flat moors with a bleaker sound; she gathered her mantle closer, and rose to face the east--sad-colored as her own future. "And where are you going?" asked the Duke of Piermont. "Surely you are not going to hide yourself from all your friends? You will let me know where you purpose residing until you procure the situation you are in search of?" I wonder what his grace would have said, had he known how utterly destitute she was--that she had but one shilling at that moment in her pocket--that the only friend to whom she could or would apply was her Father in Heaven? "I cannot answer your questions," said Margaret, holding out her hand to him; "but since you are so generous with your interest, I shall let you into the secret of my future movements, always with the understanding that the Marquis of Ducie and his friends shall not know. Now, my lord, I have nothing more to say to you, except to thank you for the intended honor which it would be ridiculous in me to accept. See, there is a shower coming up, and you will get wet before you can return to the village. Good-by." "But you--Good Heaven! Miss Walsingham, where are you to go?"