"No, she does not return till to-morrow. I was aware of that; but I was not aware that you sang, and sang as you do. Why have I never heard you before?" "I have not felt inclined to hear my own voice." "And I," interrupted Lord Effingham, "would never desire to hear any other! speaking or singing, it is ever music to me!" Kate stepped back in amazement at this address, incapable of reply; and Lord Effingham, after a short pause, as if expecting her to speak, went on rapidly-- "The words, 'I love you,' are too miserably weak to express what I feel. I have waited long to discover what your feelings are; you have not afforded me the slightest clue to them. I can endure your strange unconsciousness no longer, and am determined to lay mine bare before you in unmistakeable array. Kate! Miss Vernon, I know our natures are wide apart as heaven and earth, but still I can feel, in my inmost heart, that you have attained to a better and purer atmosphere than I have ever breathed. I know, that in your hands, I should be different from what I am. I tell you, that every shadow of good in me clings round you; and if you do not love me now, at least think before you--" "Lord Effingham," cried Kate, covering her face with one hand, and extending the other before her, "give me a moment's thought to distinguish if this be not some horrid dream!" "No, it is no dream, Miss Vernon," said Lord Effingham, recalled, by her evident alarm, from his passionate outburst. She uncovered her eyes, and looking steadily at him, exclaimed-- "How could you act with such dissimulation? Why have you so deceived us?" "I have not deceived you; nor am I answerable for the self-deception of others; but this is no answer." "But my cousin, Lady Desmond," resumed Kate, still too bewildered to think of, or choose her words, "you love her. What, what is the meaning of this extraordinary address to me?" Lord Effingham's pale, dark cheek did not change its colour by a shade; his firm, resolute mouth assumed even a sterner expression than usual, as he replied-- "Think over the past few months, and say honestly has there been a trace of the lover discoverable in my manner towards your cousin; except by eyes prompted to find out what did not exist." "But," said Kate, anxious to screen her cousin, and not to admit too much, though ill able to cope with the far-seeing accomplished man of the world, "people said you were engaged to her, you must have loved her."