I took her hand, which yielded itself readily to mine, and raised it to my lips. I felt just then as though I dare not speak, lest my voice should be unsteady. I looked instead into her face gratefully, and it seemed to me that a change had come over it, a change which puzzled me. The lips were quivering, and out of her soft, tender eyes the laughing sparkle seemed to have gone. It was another Lady Olive, surely, this grave, sweet-faced, tremulous woman, with her eyes cast down, and a faint pink glow in her cheeks! Nothing of the gay, light-hearted, chattering little flirt, with her arch looks and piquant attitude, seemed left. I was puzzled. Was she indeed so tender-hearted? "And do you really mean," she whispered, stealing a glance up at me, "that if your father goes away, there is nothing left in the world which could give you any pleasure? Nothing you would wish for?" I thought of Maud--when was I not thinking of her?--and sighed bitterly. "Only one thing," I said, "and that I cannot have." "Won't you tell me what it is?" she asked, hesitatingly, with her eyes fixed upon the ground. I shook my head. "I think not. No, it would be better not." There was a short silence. Then she lifted her beautiful eyes to mine for a moment, and dropped them again, instantly, with a deep blush: I was puzzled. There was something in them which I could not read, something inviting, beseeching, tender. Knowing what I know now, it seems to me that I must have been a blind, senseless fool. But it is easy to be wise afterwards, and my own sorrows were absorbing every sense. "Will you tell me this?" she asked. "Does this one thing include somebody else?" She had read my secret, then; she knew that I loved Maud. Well, it was not very strange that she should have guessed it after all! "Yes, you have guessed it, Lady Olive," I said quietly, with my eyes fixed upon the line of the horizon where a star-bespangled sky seemed to touch the glistening, dancing sea. "You have guessed it; but remember, I never told you." I felt a soft breath on my cheek, and before I could move a pair of white arms were thrown around my neck, and a tear-stained, half-blushing, half-smiling face, with a mass of ruffled hair, was lying on my shoulder. "Wh--why have you made me guess, Hugh? Why could you not tell me? You know that--that I--I love you." * * * * * "Father, I have decided." I stood before him dishevelled and weary, for I had been out all night, seeking to ease my heart of its pain by physical fatigue. He turned and looked at me in surprise--a surprise which changed into a look of grave sorrow as his eyes dwelt upon me. "Hugh, you have been up all night," he said, reprovingly; "you will be ill!" I laughed recklessly. "What matters? Do men die of a broken heart, I wonder? I would that they did." He came to me and laid his hands upon my shoulders. "Hugh, my boy, do you want to break mine?"