“I saw you first, just ten years ago, one night as you were waiting on the street with your father, for some lady to take you to a ball. You dropped a little trinket from around your neck.” Elizabeth started with surprise. “That was the night I first met my husband—and Hugh Pelham. And I lost my little pearl heart and never found it.” “I was the guilty man,” said Clavering, with a smile. “I crushed your heart under my foot.” It was an accidental joining of words, but Clavering wished he had expressed himself otherwise. The words had an ominous sound, and Elizabeth, after looking at him intently for a few minutes, turned her head away. Clavering, hastening to recall his lost ground, added: “The day will come when I will give you the most superb diamond locket that the South African mines can produce. I will make duchesses envy you your jewels and princesses cry with envy of them. I remembered you ever after that night, and a month ago I met you. Don’t think people are fools who talk of love at first sight for anybody at any age, or under any circumstances. The moment my eyes fell upon you I was anxious to know you. When I knew you, I wanted to know you better. When I knew you better, I became willing to do anything for you, to jeopardize anything in order to marry you. And I will give you a great fortune, millions of money, of which I shall get very little benefit, because you will outlive me many years and probably marry some other man and endow him, by gad, with my money. I will go anywhere you may desire to live, for I don’t believe you would consent to live in Washington. You may have a splendid house in London or Paris, a great country house, a château, any and everywhere you like, and you may command me as no other woman has ever commanded me. Now will you marry me after I am divorced?” Elizabeth felt dazed. She had known from the first what was coming, but when Clavering put his wish into words it was as strange and staggering as if the idea had never before occurred to her. The thought of committing so great a wrong upon another woman, as Clavering suggested, appalled her—a wrong so vast and far–reaching that she turned away from the contemplation of it. But she did not fly from the temptation, and the temptation which is not fled from is the conqueror.