She lifted her face a little, and tried to wipe away her tears. "I am not offended, Mr. Stretton," she said. "You mistake me--I am only sorry--deeply sorry--that I--if I--have misled you in any way." "Oh, you did not mislead me, Miss Murray," replied Brian, gently; "it was my own folly that was to blame. But since I have spoken, may I say something more? I should like, if possible, to justify myself a little in your eyes." She bowed her head. "Will you not sit down?" she said, softly. "Say what you like; or, at least, what you think best." He did not sit down exactly, but he came back to the stone on which he had been sitting at her feet, and dropped on one knee upon it. "Let me speak to you in this way, as a culprit should speak," he said, with a faint smile which had in it a gleam of some slightly ironical feeling, "and then you can pardon or condemn me as you choose." "If you feel like a culprit you condemn yourself," said Elizabeth, lifting her eyes to his. "I do not feel like a culprit, Miss Murray. I have, as I said before, a perfect right to love you if I choose----" Elizabeth's eyes fell, and the colour stole into her cheeks--"I would maintain that right against all the world. But I want you to be merciful: I want you to listen for a little while----" "Not to anything that I ought not to hear, Mr. Stretton." "No: to nothing that would wrong Mr. Percival Heron even by a thought. Only--it is a selfish wish of mine; but I have been misjudged a good deal in my life, and I do not want you to misjudge me--I should like you to understand how it was that I dared--yes, I dared--to love you. May I speak?" "I don't know whether I ought to listen. I think I ought to go," said Elizabeth, with an irrepressible little sob. "No, do not speak--I cannot bear it." "But in justice to me you ought to listen," said Brian, gently, and yet firmly. He laid one hand upon hers, and prevented her from rising. "A few words only," he said, in pleading tones. "Forgive me if I say I must go on. Forgive me if I say you must listen. It is for the last--and the only--time." With a great sigh she sank back upon the stone seat from which she had tried to rise. Brian still held her hand. She did not draw it away. The lines of her face were all soft and relaxed; her usual clearness of purpose had deserted her. She did not know what to do. "If you had loved me, Elizabeth--let me call you Elizabeth just for once; I will not ask to do it again--or if you had even been free--I would have told you my whole history from beginning to end, and let you judge how far I was justified in taking another name and living the life I do. But I won't lay that burden upon you now. It would not be fair. I think that you would have agreed with me--but it is not worth while to tell you now." "I am sure that you would not have acted as you did without a good and honourable motive," said Elizabeth, trembling, though she did not know why.