“May—Miss Lawrence—what does all this mean? Why cannot you be my wife?” She looked him steadily in the face; her composure was coming back to her. The desire to speak the truth was upon her. “We have always been friends,” he urged, desiring this thing the more urgently from the unexpected opposition. His pride and vanity were working hard on the same side as his affections. May looked very handsome standing there confronting him, a flush on her cheek, a light in her eyes. It was impossible for Cyril to believe her indifferent to him. He had always regarded himself as irresistible. Once again he began to plead; once again she let him have a certain licence, and then she cut him short. “Mr. Cossart, you have said a great deal now, let me say a very little. Perhaps you do not know what a woman most desires in the man she makes her husband. One thing is, I think, a perfect trust in him—his love, his courage, his honour!” She spoke the last words very distinctly; Cyril’s glance wavered for a moment, then he broke out— “I love you with all my heart, May!” “I do not think so,” she answered, “though, perhaps, you think it yourself. Forgive me if I pain you, but you want to know the truth, you say. A woman would not like to feel that in a moment of danger her husband would lose his head, leave her, and think only of saving himself!” “You are ungenerous,” said Cyril, with a dark flush; “I have refuted that charge once. I shall not repeat my defence.” “No, don’t,” said May quietly; “not to someone who was there and saw and heard all!” In the deep silence which followed, his quick angry breathing could be heard; then May spoke again in the same calm way. “A woman wants also perfect confidence in her husband’s honour. It would not be pleasant to hear searching inquiries as to how bank-notes, for instance, which he had passed on to other people had come into his possession.” The flush on Cyril’s face faded, and a grey pallor took its place. He took a backward step and almost gasped out— “Miss Lawrence, what do you mean?” “Nothing very much. Of course, no man of honour would mind such inquiries. But it seems that there is a hue and cry of some sort over a bank-note which my brother cashed some time ago. That note he changed for a friend of his who happened to be short of gold one day and asked him for it. It is rather wonderful he remembered the circumstance, but he did. As he said to me, that sort of thing was not quite pleasant, though no doubt everything could be satisfactorily explained.” Cyril’s face was livid. “I never asked your brother for change.” “Did I say that you did?” “It was implied in your speech.” “I will not imply any more then. I tell you in plain words that it was you who asked Frank for change for the note and got it. You may have forgotten, but he has not.” “And who has been making inquiries?” asked Cyril, with stiff pale lips.