A pause followed. My lord took a half-turn across the room followed by his cousin's bewildered, appealing eyes, then he turned and faced her. His demeanour was changed, his voice when he spoke was low and grave. "You have mistaken me," and he put his hand to his heart in some agitation. "I think you can never have known me; but it moves me that you should take this trouble in my affairs, and I can do no less than confess." "Confess, and to me!" cried Susannah. "To no one else could I speak," said the Earl; "what is the use, even to you? But it is strange that you should have so misunderstood me." "I thought I knew you very well," breathed Susannah. "Not so well, my dear," he returned half sadly. "I--I never loved this lady, it was a fair pretence, but no more; how could there be love when there was no knowledge? She was to me a faint, sweet figure who"--he shrugged his shoulders--"and I--why, she knew nothing of me but what I chose to show her. It was pleasant, a delicate episode; but to marry her!" "You forget some incidents of this story," said Miss Chressham with lowered eyes; "you let her think you cared--if Marius and my lady had been willing, you averred, you would have married her--what of that?" My lord laughed faintly. "I could never have done it." "Then your marriage was not for Marius, for your mother, it was for yourself." "As this is my confession, I suppose you are right, Susannah. I could never have done other than I did--am I the man for an idyll? It happened to be charming to imagine it." Miss Chressham raised her grave, dark eyes. "And afterwards, when you dared to ask Selina to refuse Sir Francis?" "That was a matter of vanity," confessed my lord, "and perhaps curiosity; I wanted to know. Ah, well, I had a number of motives." Miss Chressham put her hand to her head. "I think I understand, at last; indeed I see it very clearly. But there is something _you_ do not see clearly--the position of Selina Boyle." The Earl toyed with his glass. "Can I flatter myself that she would recall an incident that touched her so little? The whole thing was but a matter of sighs and smiles." Susannah interrupted. "I do not credit you with believing what you say; even if you do," her voice strengthened, "I know that it is false. If you were well on the earth all the time, she was nevertheless in the clouds; if you found it a flattering diversion, she found it more." My lord made a restraining gesture. "Oh, but you must hear me!" continued Susannah. "She was sincere; if you did not consider her so you must know it now." "You cannot answer for her," said the Earl, and again his natural pallor disappeared under a slow blush. "I _know_," answered his cousin. "You spoke and she believed; she accepted you on her own level, and you must act up to it, Rose." The Earl glanced at her under lowered lids.