"Nonsense." "Jim, answer me this question. If I were your wife, would you permit me to keep up my intimacy with Colonel Darcy?" "No." "Then I must choose between you two?" "Do you love me so little that there can be a question of choice?" "You don't understand. It's easy for you to say, 'Throw him over'; the reality is a very different matter. He's my oldest friend." "And I'm the man who has asked you to share his name and his honour. If I could prove to you that Darcy was unworthy--would you give him up, for my sake?" "Can you prove this?" "I'm not at liberty to say." She smiled faintly, and thought hard. She had learned in that last speech what she most wanted to know--the measure of the Secretary's knowledge. "Well?" he said, interrogatively. "I don't know how to answer," she replied. "My intuition says no; my heart says--yes." The Secretary turned cold, as a new phase of the situation presented itself to his view. "Do you love this man?" he asked. "Love Darcy--love him!" she cried. "I hate him more than any man in the world, and yet----" "You're in his power?" "No!" "Then accept me." "Jim," she said earnestly, "you're asking me to decide my whole life. Give me twenty-four hours to think it over." "Haven't you had sufficient time?" "To-morrow you shall have your answer." "Much may happen before to-morrow." "But you'll grant me this respite. I promise that to-morrow I'll say--yes or no." "To-morrow I too may be able to speak more clearly; till then, promise me you'll not see this man." "Can't you trust me, Jim? I trust you, and how little a woman can know of a man's life." "I don't know," he said, and left her discomfited--praying to Heaven that some power might intervene to reconcile her heart and conscience; for this wild, wayward and desperate woman had a conscience, and so far it had withheld her from committing an unpardonable sin. After lunch, as fate willed it, the Irish girl and the Dowager were left a moment alone together. Being both inflammable substances, sparks flew, and a conflagration ensued. The credit of starting the combustion must be accorded to the Marchioness. She had observed the young lady's earnest conversation with Stanley on the lawn in the morning, and coupling this with the undemonstrative behaviour of that gentleman towards her daughter, had jumped to the conclusion that Miss Fitzgerald was trying to rob her of her rightful prize. Being possessed of this belief, and the circumstances being exaggerated from much thinking, her wrath found expression in the offender's presence, and she gratuitously insulted the Irish girl; a dangerous thing to do, as she presently discovered. "How are you to-day?" asked the Dowager with irritating condescension. "Excessively trivial, thank you. An English Sunday is so serious, one has to be trivial in self-defence." "It is different in your country, then?" "Rather." "You seemed nervous and absorbed, at lunch."