"I know that in one sense we are so," replied Lady Louisa, through her clenched teeth and closely-drawn veil; "but I am not the less determined to solve this matter, to probe it to the utmost, and to convict Captain Norcliff or Mr. Berkeley of perfidy. So take courage, and _allons_, my love!" As they proceeded the April twilight deepened. Once or twice Cora spoke of returning; and then it was Berkeley who urged them to proceed. "Aw—haw, doocid absurd—don’t hang fire now, ladies, please," said he. "We shall draw the cover directly." Yet he was not without unpleasant misgiving as to how he might figure after "the cover" was drawn, unless he could convey the ladies away instantly, before explanations took place, and this was a part of his intended programme. "After having convincing proof that Captain Norcliff is here, you will, of course, not remain—aw—to upbraid, and all that sort of thing, Lady Louisa?" he asked, rather nervously. "Proceed, sir, but do not question me," was the haughty response, which made his cheek flush with rage in the shade. For now Lady Loftus remembered, and felt fully, that in her anger and confusion she had been completely thrown off her guard; and that she had revealed and acknowledged our mutual engagement, and her passion for me, to Cora Calderwood (who had always suspected it), and, worse than all, to Berkeley, whom she heartily despised, and who, she feared, might make a dangerous use of the information he had won. She had also been lured into committing an act of espionage, far from proper or becoming. But, nevertheless, she resolved to go through it now, and to probe the ugly affair to the end at all hazards—even to facing the fiery anger of her mother, the lofty indignation of the earl, and the vacant and senile astonishment of my Lord Slubber. "How strange it is, Cora," she whispered, as they sat hand in hand, "that one impulse leads me still to love Newton, and yet another impulse lures me to hate him! Where is my constitutional, and where are my family pride and womanly modesty, when I stoop to an act like this, and drag you, poor child, into it, too? Oh, I must love him very much surely—and you, Cora—you——" "I love him, too," was the calm and breathless response, under the closely-drawn veil. "Of course you do—he is your cousin, and your old playmate." Cora assented only by a little sigh. They both, it appeared afterwards, hoped desperately that Berkeley might yet be mistaken in the whole affair, so far as I was concerned, for they felt bitterly the truth of the maxim, that "faith once destroyed is destroyed for ever, unless in a heart which is in itself intrinsically faithless." In the dusk tears rolled unseen down the gentle face of Cora; but Louisa suppressed all appearance of emotion by biting her nether lip, and clenching her little white teeth, like the heroine of a French melodrama.