"You are not angry with me for coming, are you?" he asks almost diffidently, as soon as the door has closed on the servant. "No," she answers gently. Times are changed with her since the last occasion in which she and he stood face to face in this very room. Then she _was_ angry, but then she was in the full flush of health and beauty, and he was her would-be lover. There had been nothing to wound or humiliate her in his love-making; he had come loyally to offer her his hand and all that belonged to him, which of wealth and honor was no mean portion. But she had been deeply stung by a man daring to remember that she was free, and there was only one husband and lover in the world for her. Now that, as it seemed to her, beauty and love were so far removed from her, it was almost a pleasure to remember that she had been beloved. "I have passed your door a hundred times," he says, "and never been able to summon up courage enough to ask for you." "But to-day you were braver," she utters, looking at him with something of the old smile and manner. "I thought perhaps you had a good many dull hours now Vansittart is so much away." "How do you know that he is much away?" asks Virginia, feeling vaguely hurt at his words and tone. "Because I so often meet him out." "Where do you meet him?" "Oh, at different places. Chiefly at Mrs. Devereux's." Lord Harford looks full in Virginia's face, and she, who is so quick, cannot fail to see that his eyes and tone are intended to convey some meaning. "Mrs. Devereux?" she says, inquiringly. "You mean his cousin." "Yes." After this there is a pause. It is as though he wanted her to question him; as though she were fighting against the desire to know his meaning. She conquers herself by an effort. "I have been very ill since you saw me last. You find me much altered, do you not?" "You look delicate," he answers, "but in my eyes," lowering his voice, "you are as beautiful as ever." She half-smiles, half-sighs. "It is very kind of you to say that," she utters, "but I cannot deceive myself. I am an old woman now; if ever I had any good looks they are gone." "They are _not_!" cries Lord Harford staunchly. "What I say is gospel truth. I think your delicacy becomes you. I hate your great buxom, dairymaid women." Virginia smiles at his earnestness. "Ah, if you had been mine," he goes on, "I should never have wanted to look at another woman, young or old." Still that strange meaning in his tone. A chill terror creeps to Virginia's heart--she can no longer restrain herself. "What do you mean?" she says, fixing her eyes on him. "You are hinting at something--you want to convey something to my mind. If you are a man--if you pretend to be my friend, speak out honestly." He rises, and takes one or two turns in the room, then stops abruptly in front of her. "Will you believe me, I wonder?" he asks, "or will you think me a mean hound who only seeks his own interest?"