“No; my love for you was a girlish fancy, if you like; though Heaven only knows how deeply I felt for you in your exile--how willing I would have been to resign my imaginary wealth for love of you, if you had asked me to do so. But you never did ask that. You did not want the wife without the fortune. When you came home and found me engaged to another man--about to sacrifice myself in a mercenary marriage, as you thought--there was yet time to have exacted the fulfilment of my promise. I loved you then, Harcourt Lowther. A word from you, and I would have told Francis Tredethlyn the truth, and demanded my release. He was far too generous to have withheld it. But in doing that I should have offended my father, and I should have come to you penniless. You did not want me on those terms, Harcourt. The honest indignation of a disinterested lover never found an utterance on your lips. You were contented to assume the position of friend and confidant to your unconscious rival; and it is only since I have been left alone to think of my past life, that I have fully understood the dishonour involved in keeping our broken engagement a secret from my husband. I loved you when you came back to England, Harcourt. It was a hard battle which duty had to fight against the unaltered affection of my girlhood. I prayed to God night and day for strength to do my duty, and to keep my promise to the man who had a claim upon me, which you have never known. I prayed for power to blot your image from my mind; and my prayer was heard. My first foolish love died on my wedding-day, Harcourt, when you stood by to see me married to Francis Tredethlyn. From that hour to this you have been no more to me than any other man who has paid me the conventional attentions which I imagined I had a right to receive. If I had ever seen more than this in your conduct, Mr. Lowther, you would have found me quite capable of asserting my position.” “The world has chosen to see a good deal more than conventional courtesy in my attendance upon you, Mrs. Tredethlyn,” answered Harcourt. He had lost the game. Utterly defeated in the moment of his expected triumph, he was careless as to the rest of his play. How can the whist-player, who knows that he is beaten, be expected to pay any great attention to the order in which he plays the two or three insignificant cards that he holds at the close of the rubber? “People have been good enough to make us the subject of considerable discussion, Mrs. Tredethlyn,” continued Harcourt. “A man is apt to hear these things, though they rarely reach the ears of the lady most interested in hearing them. The people amongst whom we live have made up their minds about us, I know, and will be considerably astonished if you throw me over now that you are free to reward the patient devotion which, has endured so much in the hope of this hour.”