But he saw how she was suffering, and he tried to be patient with her, feeling sure that if he could only make her listen to him all would be well. “My dear,” he said, gently, “you do not understand. Pray, let me tell you all about it. I swear that I am both——” “You need not swear; I know enough already. Go back to my more fortunate cousin, Miss Richards, whom the whole household expects you intend to make Lady Carrol. She, I own, is better fitted to be the bride of a peer of England than the poor alien who is a burden upon her bounty. She will grace your proud home and name with her beauty; she will add to your riches with her wealth. But let me tell you”—and Star had no idea how superbly beautiful she was as she stood so proudly before him and uttered this prophetic sentence—“that the girl whom she has despised and insulted, whom you have deceived, and whose life you have blighted by your treachery, will yet rise to a position that shall shame and humiliate you both. Go back to her, I say, and—ask her for the cameo which you gave me. I told you that I had lost it. I put it that way because I did not like to tell you how badly I had been used by those who should have given me only sympathy and love; but she—the girl whom you have come to win for your wife—_stole_ it from me, my one little treasure, the only ornament I had which I could wear in my humble position, and which I prized more than anything else in the world. But let her keep it; I relinquish it freely, now that I have discovered the baseness of the giver. My Lord Carrol, of Carrolton, alias Archibald Sherbrooke, the artist, I despise you, and I bid you farewell!” She was gone before he could hardly realize that she had ceased speaking; she had sped down the avenue with the lightness and swiftness of a fawn, leaving him dazed, bewildered, almost paralyzed from the wild words, the terrible denunciation which she had uttered. CHAPTER XVIII. EXPLANATIONS. “Star! Star! my dear love, come back and let me undeceive you,” he called aloud, as soon as he could recover his senses sufficiently to speak. But there was no answering sound, save the sad sighing of the rustling leaves which had so unnerved the unhappy girl a few minutes before. He followed the direction she had taken. He wandered about the grounds for full half an hour, but could discover no trace of her; and at last, feeling greatly disturbed, he was obliged to retrace his steps, and returned to the mansion. He had strolled forth at the close of dinner to smoke, and to get away for a little quiet musing, for he had intended, as he said, to seek out his beautiful love on the morrow, and put upon one of her white fingers the seal to their plighted troth, and, this done, to tell her that he was both an _artist and a peer of Victoria’s realm_.