"I don't say I am worthy, but I have a fairly clean record. As for that matter, I will explain. I was unwise, but I was not altogether to blame. My mother has a greatly loved young cousin. She has been in the house with us since her mother died some years ago. It was a scheme of my mother's that we should marry, though it was not openly expressed. I did not oppose it. I had no idea what love meant till I saw Pamela; but I had fetched and carried for Lady Kitty. Probably a great number of people thought we were engaged; and it seemed to me that I ought to set the matter straight before I was formally engaged to Pamela." "It would have been better to have let Pamela alone till you were quite free." "Yes, I know, but----" "There; you are young. You can't be expected to be as deliberate as an older man. You meant to act straight by her?" "I meant to come back in a week a free man. When I was called away to my uncle's sick bed, my mother made me promise not to speak, not to try to clear up things with Lady Kitty, till I returned. I did write to Mr. Graydon, but the letter never reached him." He blushed hotly and paused. "Yes, I know," interrupted Lord Glengall. "When you came back?" "When I came back, I found--Pamela engaged to you, and my cousin engaged to a great friend of mine. As it proved, she had never thought of me in that way; but her affection for my mother prevented her from speaking out." "You should have written again to Mr. Graydon. You made Pamela unhappy." "I thought he had not written because I said I would come as soon as I could. Then I was kept week after week, till the time turned into months. I am deeply sorry that I caused her unhappiness." "This is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" "It is absolutely the truth, and nothing else." "Very well, Sir Anthony, I believe you. If you had not been straight, I should have held her to the letter of her bond against you and the world, even against herself. Now--in her heart she has chosen you, and you are a fitter mate for her than I--I resign her to you." "Lord Glengall!" "I do not ask your thanks, sir. Make her happy--that is all. For the rest, I have one word of advice for you." "Whatever it is, I shall act upon it." "Go back to-night to England." "Without a word to Pamela?" "Let her be. I will say what is necessary. You will have to win her again, young sir. She is not the girl to change her lovers like her frocks." "Perhaps you are right, sir," with hesitation. "Go," said Lord Glengall, waving him away, "go! If you speak to her in her present mood, you will be sorry. Let her be free of both of us for a while." "You, too, will leave her?" "I shall leave her till all this is forgotten. It will be nothing new for me to set out for the ends of the earth at an hour's notice." "You are, as Pamela says, the best man living." "Stop!" said Lord Glengall, with a gesture as if he could not endure the praise. "Good-bye!"