"The same charming scene!" he exclaimed. "I think the moonlight view from this window most beautiful. The dark trees, and the white walls of Lady Godolphin's Folly, rising there, remain on my memory as a painted scene." He folded his arms and stood there, gazing still. Cecil stole a look up at him: at his pale, attractive face, with its expression of care. She had wondered once why that look of care should be conspicuous there; but not after she became acquainted with his domestic history. "Have you returned to England to remain, Lord Averil?" The question awoke him from his reverie. He turned to Cecil, and a sudden impulse prompted him to stake his fate on the die of the moment. It was not a lucky throw. "I would remain if I could induce one to share my name and home. Forgive me, Cecil, if I anger you by thus hastily speaking. Will you forget the past, and help _me_ to forget it?--will you let me make you my dear wife?" In saying "Will you forget the past," Lord Averil had alluded to his first marriage. In his extreme sensitiveness upon that point, he doubted whether Cecil might not object to succeed the dead Lady Averil: he believed those hasty and ill-natured words, reported to him as having been spoken by her, bore upon that sore point alone. Cecil, on the contrary, assumed that her forgetfulness was asked for his own behaviour to her, in so far as that he had gone away and left her without word or explanation. She grew quite pale with anger. Lord Averil resumed, his manner earnest, his voice low and tender. "I have loved you, Cecil, from the first day that I saw you at Mrs. Averil's. I dragged myself away from the place, because I loved you, fearing lest you might come to see my folly. It was worse than folly then, for I was not a free man. I have gone on loving you more and more, from that time to this. I went abroad this last time hoping to forget you; striving to forget you; but I cannot do it, and the love has only become stronger. Forgive, I say, my urging it upon you in this moment's impulse." Poor Cecil was all at sea. "Went abroad, hoping to forget her; striving to forget her!" It was worse and worse. She flung his hand away. "Oh, Cecil! can you not love me?" he exclaimed in agitation. "Will you not give me hope that you will sometime be my wife?" "No, I cannot love you. I will not give you hope. I would rather marry any one in the world than you. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Lord Averil!" Not a very dignified rejoinder. And Cecil, what with anger, what with _love_, burst into even less dignified tears, and left the room in a passion. Lord Averil bit his lips to pain. Janet entered, unsuspicious. He turned from the window, and smoothed his brow, gathering what equanimity he could, as he proceeded to inquire after Mr. Godolphin. CHAPTER IV. CHARLOTTE PAIN'S "TURN-OUT."