"I do not think Lady Wallace would be a good companion for Hyacinth, because she is what people of the period call 'fast.' She created a great sensation three years ago by eloping with Lord Wallace. She was only seventeen at the time." Lady Vaughan looked slightly disgusted; but Hyacinth, who perhaps felt in some measure that she was on her trial, said: "Perhaps she loved him." Adrian turned to her eagerly. "That is what I was trying to explain to you the other day--false romance--how the truest, the purest, the brightest romance would have been, not eloping--which is the commonplace instinct of commonplace minds--but waiting in patience. Think of the untruths, the deceit, the false words, the underhand dealings that are necessary for an elopement!" "But surely," said Lady Vaughan, "there are exceptions?" "There may be. I do not know. I am only saying what I think. A girl who deceives all her friends, who leaves home in such a fashion, must be devoid of refinement and delicacy--not to mention truth and honesty." "You are very hard," murmured Hyacinth. "Nay," he rejoined, turning to her with infinite tenderness of manner; "there are some things in which one cannot be too hard. Anything that touches the fair and pure name of a woman should be held sacred." "You think highly of women," she said. "I do--so highly that I cannot bear even a cloud to shadow the fairness and brightness that belong to them. A woman's fair name is her inheritance--her dower. I could not bear, had I a sister, to hear her name lightly spoken by light lips. What the moss is to the rose, what green leaves are to the lily, spotless repute is to a woman." As he spoke the grave words, Hyacinth looked at him. How pure, how noble the woman must be who could win his love! "Ah me, ah me!" thought the girl, with a bitter sigh, "what would he say to me if he knew all? Who was ever so near the scandal he hated as I was? Oh, thank Heaven, that I drew back in time, and that mine was but the shadow of a sin!" There were times when she thought, with a beating heart, of what Lady Vaughan had said to her--that it was her wish Adrian Darcy should marry her. The lot that had once seemed so hard to her was now so bright, so dazzling, that she dared not think of it--when she remembered it, her face flushed crimson. "I am not worthy," she said over and over again to herself--"I am not worthy." She thought of Adrian's love as she thought of the distant stars in heaven--bright, beautiful, but far away. In her sweet humility, she did not think there was anything in herself which could attract him. She little dreamed, how much he admired the loveliness of her face, the grace of her girlish figure, the purity, the innocence, the simplicity that, despite the shadow of a sin, still lingered with her.