"I do not ask you if you believe me," she said, when her story was finished. "I can see that you do not. All is over between us, Sir Oswald," she added, in a tone of intense sadness--"all is over. You are right in what you said just now, cruel though your words were. You did take me from the gutter; you accepted me in ignorance of my past history; you gave your love and your name to a friendless, nameless creature; and now that circumstances conspire to condemn me, can I wonder if you, too, condemn--if you refuse to believe my declaration of my innocence? I do not wonder. I am only grieved that it should be so. I should have been so proud of your love if it could have survived this fiery ordeal--so proud! But let that pass. I would not remain an hour beneath this roof on sufferance. I am quite ready to go from this house to-day, at an hour's warning, never to re-enter it. Raynham Castle is no more to me than that desolate tower in which I spent last night--without your love. I will leave you without one word of reproach, and you shall never hear my name, or see my face again." She moved towards the door as she spoke. There was a quiet earnestness in her manner which might have gone far to convince Oswald Eversleigh of her truth; but his mind was too deeply imbued with a belief in her falsehood. This dignified calm, this subdued resignation, seemed to him only the consummate art of a finished actress. "She is steeped in falsehood to the very lips," he thought. "Doubtless, the little she told me of the history of her childhood was as false as all the rest. Heaven only knows what shameful secrets may have been hidden in her past life!" She had crossed the threshold of the door, when some sudden impulse moved him to follow her. "Do not leave Raynham till you have heard further from me, Lady Eversleigh," he said. "It will be my task to make all arrangements for your future life." His wife did not answer him. She walked towards the hall, her head bent, her eyes fixed on the ground. "She will not leave the castle until she is obliged to do so," thought Sir Oswald, as he returned to the library. "Oh, what a tissue of falsehood she tried to palm upon me! And she would have blackened my nephew's name, in order to screen her own guilt!" He rang a bell, and told the servant who answered it to fetch Mr. Eversleigh. His nephew appeared five minutes afterwards, still very pale and anxious-looking.