"Interest?" echoes Virginia bitterly, "what interest can it be to you?" "This much," he answers, a red flush mounting to his brow, "that I am as anxious this moment to make you my wife as I was four years ago." Virginia makes an impatient movement with her hand. "Vansittart is in love with Mrs. Devereux's eldest girl, Connie. She is a pretty little kitten of a thing, but a mere child--a doll. I go there rather often--they are old friends of mine. Whenever I go, he is always there." For a moment Virginia feels as though she were dying; then, by an extraordinary effort, she recovers herself. "I would rather have my tongue cut out than tell you," Lord Harford continues, half-ashamed, "only that I want you to know where your refuge is if he breaks your heart. Oh!" imploringly, "why will you not care for me who am ready to devote my life to you? Marry me, and let us go abroad and win health for you and happiness for me!" His voice is broken with emotion--he takes one of her hands in his. She is leaning back in her chair, very white--she is hardly conscious of his action--all the hot blood in his veins cannot warm her chill white fingers. "Do you think," she says at last, very slowly, "that if--if he were rid of me, he would marry her? Does she care for him?" "I don't think about it. Yes, it is very strange; but, child as she is, he has perfectly infatuated her." There is another long pause, during which he eagerly scans her face. Suddenly her eyes light up, and she returns his glance. "Are you _really_ willing to marry me?" she says. "Why do you ask?" he returns, simply. "Are my eyes not honest?" Virginia smiles. "If you mean it," she says, "go now, and write me the same words to-night or to-morrow." So, as she bids him, he goes. * * * * * Lord Harford had set down nothing in malice. What he told Virginia is absolutely true. Philip Vansittart is in love with a gay, pretty child, whose winsome tricks have coiled her round his heart. He has never spoken one word of love to her, for he feels and knows himself as much bound to Virginia as though the marriage-tie he once so utterly abhorred linked them. He no longer, strange to say, thinks and speaks so evilly of marriage. Were he free, would he not joyfully chain himself with all the bonds that church and society can impose to this sweet young life which would make him young again? He has no thought or desire to blast this girl-life as he had done Virginia's. Perish the thought! When these ideas come to him, he hates and loathes himself; he makes superhuman efforts to drive them away--but the limpid blue eyes come and look at him over his briefs; the childish voice rings in his ears in the night watches! He grows pale and haggard. At last he makes a mighty resolve. "Virginia," he says, two nights after Lord Harford's visit to her, "let us be married!"