"Yes, you were loyal, Pam, in the spirit, but loyalty without love is poor comfort. It is not enough for me." "I do love you." "I believe you do, Pam, but there are different kinds of love. Is this that other you once told me about?" "Yes." "I thought so. You have had few opportunities for meeting men in your quiet life. This is the lad who was your father's pupil?" "The son of his old friend, Sir Gerald Trevithick." "I ought to have met him when he was here. But I was finishing up in Australia. He is honest, Pam--is he?" "I am sure he is--now. Before I thought he was false." "How did it come that he went away like that, having made you love him?" "He was called away to a sick uncle. He wrote to father to explain, but the letter never reached him." "You are sure he wrote?" "Yes, he has told me. His mother----You saw her once?" "A frozen-looking woman, dressed like an empress, who came one day. She was so haughty to me that I very soon removed myself." "That was her." "My poor little Pam!--that was the woman you went to visit afterwards? I had not realised it. I never thought of her after that day." "She made me very unhappy. From the first she had a quiet way of making me feel not of her world, and afterwards she was horrid--about papa. She told me--falsehoods, too." "Why didn't you come home, Pam?" "I wouldn't let them know that the visit had been so horrible. Papa was pleased for me to go. Then he fell ill, and I came away." "What did she tell you, Pam?" "She told me Sir Anthony was engaged to his cousin. It was she who intercepted his letter to papa, in which he said he would come back." "Ah! there are such women. But why didn't he speak fully and frankly before he went?" "I do not know. There was some reason. He spoke of something that stood in the way." Lord Glengall frowned, with his eyes on the ground. "I shall find out the reason," he said. "Ah! no," cried Pamela, clinging to his arm. "Let it be. I have told him he must go away. I belong to you, and not to him." A little spasm of pain passed over the irregular features. "Don't try me too much, Pamela, or I might take you at your word." "I want you to take me at my word." "I am sure you do--at this moment." "Now and always." "My little Pam! Still mine till I give you up of my own free will. You will trust me to do what is for the best?" "I will trust you for ever. You are not going to give me up?" Again his face contracted. "Not unless I ought to, Pam. Not unless the lad is straight and can prove himself worthy of you. If I feel he can make you happier than I can, I will give you to him. If not, I will keep you in spite of yourself, and trust to my love to make you forget him." "I think that might easily come true." "Don't make it hard for me, Pam, if I have to cede my right to another. Pamela"--she had lifted her hands to him in her emotion--"where is your ring?" Pamela wrung her hands in her trouble.