He uttered these with an earnest softness that surprised Miss Vernon, so complete was the transformation it created in his look and manner. "I never accused you, even in thought, of such cruelty," she returned, anxious to relieve his evident anxiety, "so say no more about it, I entreat." "But the gesture of repugnance, with which you turned from me, I cannot forget it." "Did I," said Kate, blushing at the idea of having wounded the feelings of any one; "I was unaware, but, if you reflect for a moment, you will acknowledge it was natural, just then, you know I felt sick at heart." Lord Effingham's dark cheek flushed for an instant, he bit his lips. "Yet you say you forgive me." "And I do," she returned, "I could not resent an unintentional offence." He smiled, a very different smile from those that usually darkened rather than illuminated his countenance, and Kate, thought, "perhaps that might have been the expression of it in childhood." He held out his thin, nervous, resolute looking hand, with a look of entreaty and an expressive-- "Then if----." Kate, who had not an atom of prudery, and was anxious to make up for the gesture of repugnance, he had so forcibly described, put her own frankly into it; he raised it for a moment, to his lips, and said, lightly, half in jest, half earnest-- "And on this hand I renounce my evil ways." She withdrew her hand quickly, but before she could make any reply, Lord Effingham said-- "Let us look at these exquisite views; Lady Desmond, the Wentworths, and myself, made many expeditions among the Appenines. Where were you then, Miss Vernon?" He asked this in a tone as if he remembered, with amazement, having enjoyed any thing where she was not; but Kate did not notice it, for, transported back to former scenes, by his question, she answered, with a sigh-- "Ah, I was then very happy!" Lord Effingham looked up at her, and as her eyes were bent down, quite regardless of him, he permitted a slight smile to mingle in the admiring glance that rested on her. "Have you seen Lady Desmond?" she enquired, raising her eyes to his with a vague sort of notion that she ought not to remain there in that quiet room, with its books and pictures, _tête-à-tête_, with her cousin's lover. "No, I came here to ask you where she was, _remember_!" "Why, am I to remember? do you wish me to tell her?"