How could she judge of the emptiness and weariness of a dead passion that he had only longed to forget, that he dared not breathe to her pure young ears? How should she reck of the soulless bondage from which he thought himself free? She had been so proud, that his excuses looked paltry to himself--an amorous infidelity that this great, pure, trusting love had shamed and shown as the debasing, selfish thing it was. And she would hear nothing--nothing; and in his heart he could not blame her. "If she had loved me less she would have forgiven," he had said to himself. "The innocence of youth is cruel, because its ideals are so lofty, its exactions so great. She thought me a hero, and now I look only a beast!" And he had left her. She would never forgive, he felt sure; and all his pleas and excuses only humiliated him, and never touched her. Desperate, maddened, hating himself and his old folly, whose burden he could never in life shake off, so he had passed from her presence and her knowledge for thirteen long years. And now he stood before her again and thought of the past. "Do tell, Colonel," says the shrill voice of the Dresden China figure beside him. "Did you ever shoot a tiger out there in India, and is it really so hot, and do the elephants come out at night and knock all the houses down, and is there nothing but curry and rice to eat, and are the ladies all yellow, and have you brought any 'punkahs' or tigers' claws home with you, and did you know Captain Dasher of the 40th? He went out to Burmah last year." Colonel Carlisle rouses himself, and looks at her bewildered. He does not know how to begin answering her questions. Fortunately he is saved the trouble. "Why, aunt, there's Keith!" she exclaims suddenly. "He's come after all. Excuse me, Colonel; that's the young man I'm going to marry. Will you tell him I'm sitting here, and he's to come right along at once?" Colonel Carlisle bows, and retreats delighted. CHAPTER XXII To feel the arms of my true love Round me once again! No one has been more astonished at the news of Keith Athelstone's engagement than Lady Etwynde. It comes to her in a letter from Lauraine--a cold and strangely written letter, yet one which has caused the writer terrible pangs. When they left Baden they had gone to Falcon's Chase, and entertained a large house party there. After Christmas Lauraine was coming to London. She was not strong, and the cold, bleak air of the north tried her severely. All this Lady Etwynde learnt by letters--letters that seemed curt and constrained--that in no way revealed anything of that inner life, those secret springs of feelings which she had learned to read and gauge in the confidences of that past summer.