have said nothing; but do you think I have not seen how my weariness, my coldness, the impossibility of my taking interest in all the little schemes you have laid for my diversion, have irked and pained you? Do you think I do not know what it is for a full heart to beat itself into quiet against a stone? I know it all; and if I could have spared you one pang, I swear I would have done so. But I loved this man; ah, how I loved him! He was but a memory to me then; but that memory was far, far dearer than all reality! He is more than a memory to me now; for he lives, and he is in London and I have seen him!" Out Of Geoffrey Ludlow's hands came, raised up suddenly, a dead white face with puckered lips, knit brows, and odd red streaks and indentations round the eyes. "Yes, Geoffrey Ludlow," she continued, not heeding the apparition, "I have seen him,--now, within this hour,--seen him, bright, well, and handsome--O, so handsome!--as when I saw him first; and that has determined me. While I thought of him as perhaps dead; while I knew him to be thousands of miles away, I could bear to sit here, to drone out the dull monotonous life, striving to condone the vagrancy of my thoughts by the propriety of my conduct,--heart-sick, weary, and remorseful. Yes, remorseful, so far as you are concerned; for you are a true and noble man, Geoffrey. But now that he is here, close to me, I could not rest another hour,--I must go to him at once. Do you hear, Geoffrey,--at once?" He tried to speak, but his lips were parched and dry, and he only made an inarticulate sound. There was no mistaking the flash of his eyes, however. In them Margaret had never seen such baleful light; so that she was scarcely astonished when, his voice returning, he hissed out "I know him!" "You know him?" "Yes; just come back from Australia--Lord Caterham's brother! I had a letter from Lord Caterham to-day,--his brother--Lionel Brakespere!" "Well," she exclaimed, "what then? Suppose it be Lionel Brakespere, what then, I ask--what then?" "Then!" said Geoffrey, poising his big sinewy arm--"then, let him look to himself; for, by the Lord, I'll kill him!"