He raised one of her little hands to his lips and covered the finger-tips with kisses, smiling in spite of himself at the coquetry which had come so naturally to her in so short a time. “Go on with what you were saying about the sadness of your life,” he said. “I want to know everything that you told Carthew.” Stella had had hardly any experience of men; but she was a true woman, and her keen feminine instinct taught her that this man she loved was of a totally different temperament from the man who loved her. Hilary’s mind was of a direct, practical, common-sense order. In all his life he had thought but little of love for women, and now that the feeling overmastered him, he was inclined to question its authority, as well as to fly into paroxysms of jealousy without sufficient reason. He was not in the least conceited, and rather overrated Lord Carthew’s higher mental endowments, together with his eloquent tongue, high rank and wealth, when pitted against his own dower from nature of bone, and muscle, and manly beauty. He knew that Carthew loved Stella, and it would have seemed very natural to him that his passion should be returned. Above all, he did not wish to act toward his friend in a dishonorable and disloyal manner. Against his will, his blood leaped in his veins, as the young girl leaned toward him, lifting her beautiful, innocent eyes, with the light of love shining in them, to his face. Against his will, he clasped his arm about her waist, and felt that the world before him, with all its hopes, was well lost for the sake of a kiss from her soft, red lips. “I can’t talk to you if you stop me like that,” Stella remonstrated, with a happy little laugh; “and do, pray, remember that that door is partly of glass, and people can see through it. Another moment and they will be having breakfast at the Chase. If my father finds out where I have been, he will half kill me.” “Is he so bad as that?” he asked, wonderingly.