‘What is it, then, that you would swear?’ asked she calmly and even coldly. ‘Swear that I have no hope so high, no ambition so great, as to win your heart.’ ‘Indeed! And that other heart that you have won--what is to become of it?’ ‘Its owner has recalled it. In fact, it was never in _my_ keeping but as a loan.’ ‘How strange! At least, how strange to me this sounds. I, in my ignorance, thought that people pledged their very lives in these bargains.’ ‘So it ought to be, and so it would be, if this world were not a web of petty interests and mean ambitions; and these, I grieve to say, will find their way into hearts that should be the home of very different sentiments. It was of this order was that compact with my cousin--for I will speak openly to you, knowing it is her to whom you allude. We were to have been married. It was an old engagement. Our friends--that is, I believe, the way to call them--liked it. They thought it a good thing for each of us. Indeed, making the dependants of a good family intermarry is an economy of patronage--the same plank rescues two from drowning. I believe--that is, I fear--we accepted all this in the same spirit. We were to love each other as much as we could, and our relations were to do their best for us.’ ‘And now it is all over?’ ‘All--and for ever.’ ‘How came this about?’ ‘At first by a jealousy about _you_.’ ‘A jealousy about _me_! You surely never dared--’ and here her voice trembled with real passion, while her eyes flashed angrily. ‘No, no. I am guiltless in the matter. It was that cur Atlee made the mischief. In a moment of weak trustfulness, I sent him over to Wales to assist my uncle in his correspondence. He, of course, got to know Lady Maude Bickerstaffe--by what arts he ingratiated himself into her confidence, I cannot say. Indeed, I had trusted that the fellow’s vulgarity would form an impassable barrier between them, and prevent all intimacy; but, apparently, I was wrong. He seems to have been the companion of her rides and drives, and under the pretext of doing some commissions for her in the bazaars of Constantinople, he got to correspond with her. So artful a fellow would well know what to make of such a privilege.’ ‘And is he your successor now?’ asked she, with a look of almost undisguised insolence. ‘Scarcely that,’ said he, with a supercilious smile. ‘I think, if you had ever seen my cousin, you would scarcely have asked the question.’ ‘But I have seen her. I saw her at the Odescalchi Palace at Rome. I remember the stare she was pleased to bestow on me as she swept past me. I remember more, her words as she asked, “Is this your Titian Girl I have heard so much of?”’ ‘And may hear more of,’ muttered he, almost unconsciously. ‘Yes--even that too; but not, perhaps, in the sense you mean.’ Then, as if correcting herself, she went on, ‘It was a bold ambition of Mr. Atlee. I must say I like the very daring of it.’ ‘_He_ never dared it--take my word for it.’