She was ill; she had a perfect right to say so, and was not uttering the slightest falsehood in the assertion. That dreadful sinking of the heart, that utter prostration, that deep, dead blankness of spirits, that hopelessness, that refusal to be comforted--if this did not constitute illness, what did? He _did_ love her, then? She had known it long, but what bliss it was to hear him avow it! Should she ever lose the remembrance of him as he stood before her--the light in his eye, the _pose_ of his head, the tone of his voice? True? She would stake her life on that man's truth. What a difference between his diffident earnestness and the theatrical swagger with which Gilbert Lloyd asked her the same question--ah, how many years ago! Lord Ticehurst, too,--she had almost forgotten his visit and its purport, so overshadowed was it by the importance of the affair which immediately succeeded it,--Lord Ticehurst--he was, in his way, considerate and kindly--meant to be all courteous and all honest; she hoped her manner to him had not been brusque or abrupt. Countess of Ticehurst, eh?--rank, wealth, station. For an instant a hard, cold, proud look, which had been a stranger to her face of late, flitted across her features, and then faded away. No! Those might have had their allurements when she first learned Gilbert Lloyd's worthlessness, and recommenced her life, scorning to yield, and merely looking on all human weaknesses as stepping-stones for her advancement. She had learned better things than that now. Miles! Could it be possible that but a comparatively short time ago he had been supremely indifferent to her? that she had looked on and seen the love for her growing in his heart, without a dream of ever reciprocating it? And now--Refused him! she could have done nothing else. And for his own sake--as she had told him, but as he seemed unable to comprehend,--for his own sake. For the love of such a man as Miles Challoner she would have risked everything, in the first appreciation of such a sentiment so fresh and novel to her in all her experience of life--and that experience had been singular and not small; to be the recipient of such a passion as that man proffered and laid at her feet, she would have let her dead past bury its dead; forgotten, buried, stamped down out of all chance of resurrection the events of her early life--her marriage, her separation from her husband The compact made between her and Gilbert Lloyd should have been more than ever religiously fulfilled. That she held that husband at her mercy she knew perfectly well: only once had he ventured to question her power that evening at Mrs. Burge's reception, and his conduct then had given her ample proof of the impossibility of his resistance to her will. She had nothing to fear from him; and she knew him well enough to be certain that he had kept that secret at least locked in his own breast. But Miles? No! she had done rightly; even if her appreciation