"Was it not true? Were you not engaged to her?" she asked, almost inaudibly. "Yes," he replied quickly. "I kept that from you; but it was true. You read of the engagement in that paragraph in the stupid paper, you remember? I ought to have told you, and I thought that it was because I had not, as well as because I had concealed my rank, that you broke with me. But, Nell, my engagement with her was broken off by herself; when there was a chance of my losing the title and the estates, she jilted me. I was free when I asked you to be my wife. You believe that? Great heavens! you do not think me so bad, so base----" "No," she said, with a sigh. "No; but you went back to her. Oh, I do not blame you! She is very beautiful; she was a fitting wife----" He uttered an exclamation--it was very like an oath--and caught her hand again. "No, no," he said, almost fiercely. "You are wrong--wrong!" She sighed again. "I saw you--and her," she said, as if that were conclusive. "I know it," he said. "You saw her come toward me and greet me as if--Heaven! I can scarcely bear to speak of it, to recall it!--as if she were betrothed to me. You saw her kiss me. But, Nell--ah! my dearest, listen to me, believe me!"--for she turned away from him in the bitterness of her agony, the remembrance of the agony she had suffered that night on the terrace. "You must believe me! The kiss was hers, not mine. I would rather have died than my lips should have touched her that night." Nell's heart began to throb, and something--a vague hope--the touch of a joy too great and deep for words--began to steal over her. "I am a fool, and weak, but, as Heaven is my witness, I had no thought for her that night. All my heart, my love, were yours! The very sight of her, her presence, was painful to me! Even as she came toward me, I was thinking of you, was in search of you. And her kiss! If the lips had been those of one of the statues on the terrace, it could not have moved me less. Nell, be merciful to me! What could I do? I am a man, she is a woman. Could I thrust her from me? I longed to do so; I would have told her I loved her no longer, that my love was given to another, to you, Nell; but there was no time. She left me before I could scarcely utter a word. And then I went in search of you--and the rest you know. Think, Nell! When you sent me away, did I go to her? No; I left England with my disappointment and my misery. Ah, Nell, if you had only told me that you had beheld the scene on the balcony! Go back to her--and leave you!" He laughed with mingled bitterness and desperation. The strain was growing too tense for mere words. At such moments as this, the man, if there is aught of manliness in him, has need of more than words.