How long they had been alone, they did not know—time flies so quickly at times like these. It seemed but a few minutes to them, though it might well have been an hour, when the handle of the door was turned, and the curtain drawn back. Geraldine uttered a little cry of startled amaze. It was Lord Sandford who hail entered, and she had forgotten his very existence! Had her mother, in one of her spiteful moods, told him that he would find her here? It was not impossible; and the girl’s face grew a little white, for Lord Sandford’s rapier dangled at his side, as was indeed the fashion of the times, and he was a man upon whose hot passions nobody could absolutely reckon. Strange stories had been told of him before this. The young Earl stood for a moment framed in the doorway, his powerful face set in lines the meaning of which it were hard to read aright. Grey had risen and stood close to Geraldine, his eyes fixed vigilantly upon the massive figure of the man who had once been his friend. To the girl it seemed as though their eyes met, and glanced one against the other, like the blades of duellists in a preliminary pass. Her breath came thick and fast. She felt the anxious, tumultuous beating of her heart. Lord Sandford was the first to break the tense silence. "Lady Geraldine, I came hither to-night to receive an answer to the offer of marriage which I sent to you through your mother, Lady Romaine. Is this the answer you have prepared for me?" He looked straight at the girl, and then at Grey, with a wide, unabashed gaze that did not shrink or falter. Grey made one step forward, and spoke in low, quiet tones. "My lord, you may receive your answer at my hands, for the Lady Geraldine Adair is now my promised wife." "Lady Geraldine," spoke Lord Sandford, "is this the truth?" "It is, my lord, albeit I had not meant to give you your answer in such like fashion. I thank you for the honour you have done me; but my heart is given elsewhere."