set nothing except the unselfishness of my love, the strength of my devotion." Cecil had listened very patiently to this address. She could not doubt the depth of feeling which was breathed in every accent of the barrister's voice, subdued and grave in tone, and altogether different from the sonorous thunder which so often awoke the echoes of the law-courts. She was touched by his appeal, though it stirred no warmer feeling than a gentle thrill of womanly pity. It is not in the nature of a woman to feel unkindly to the lowest of human beings who reveals to her a pure and noble affection. A Miranda will pardon and pity a Caliban if his devotion is instinct with the divinity of innocent love. "Are you really in earnest, Mr. O'Boyneville?" asked Lady Cecil. "I was never more in earnest in my life." "I am very sorry for it--I am very sorry," answered Cecil, gently. "I am sure I need not tell you that I am touched and flattered by your preference for me, eccentric as it may be; but you must be indeed a stranger to the society of women if you can imagine that any woman, knowing as little of you as I do, could reply otherwise than in the negative to such an offer as you have made me." "Yes, I dare say it's very absurd," murmured Mr. O'Boyneville, despondingly; "it's my headlong way of doing things--a national characteristic, I suppose, Lady Cecil. I ought to have waited a week or two--till we knew each other--intimately--and then----Would there have been any hope for me if I had waited a week or two?" asked the barrister, in that soft insinuating tone to which he had been known to drop after a burst of loud and lofty declamation, with a sudden transition of style that had often proved irresistible with an impressionable jury. Cecil Chudleigh shook her head gently. "I might have been less surprised by your flattering proposal, Mr. O'Boyneville," she said; "but no circumstances could possibly arise under which I could give you any other answer than that I have given you to-day. "And that answer is 'No'?" "It is, Mr. O'Boyneville." "Irrevocably no?" "Irrevocably." "Lady Cecil, forgive me if I ask you a question. Is there any one--any one who occupies the place in your heart that it would be my dearest hope to win for myself? Ah, you don't know how patiently I would bide my time if there were ever so distant a gleam of sunshine to lure me on! Is there any one else, Lady Cecil?" "No, there is no one else."