“I could not clear my conscience if I did not confess that you are not the first woman whom I have asked to be my wife.” There was a start, and Lucy’s face was pale as ashes, while her hand went quickly to her side, where the heartbeats were visible, warning Arthur to be careful how he startled one whose life hung on so slender a thread as Lucy’s; so, when she asked, “Who was it, and why did you not marry her? Did you love her very much?” he answered indifferently, “I would rather not tell you who it was, as that might be a breach of confidence. She did not care to be my wife, and so that dream was over and I was left for you.” He did not say how much he loved her who had discarded him, but Lucy forgot the omission, and asked, “Was she very young and pretty?” “Young and pretty both, but not as beautiful as you,” Arthur replied, his fingers softly putting back the golden curls from the face looking so trustingly into his. And in that he answered truly. He had seen no face as beautiful of its kind as Lucy’s was, and he was glad that he could tell her so. He knew how that would please her and partly make amends for the tender words which he could not speak,—for the phantom eyes still haunting him so strangely. And Lucy, who took all things for granted, was more than content, although she wondered that he did not kiss her again, and wished she knew the girl who had come so near being in her place. But she respected his wishes too much to ask after what he had said, and she tried to make herself glad that he had been so frank with her and not left his other love-affair to the chance of her discovering it afterwards, at a time when it might be painful to her. “I wish I had something to confess,” she thought; but from the score of her flirtations, and even offers, for she had not lacked for them, she could not find one where her own feelings had been enlisted in ever so slight a degree until she remembered Thornton Hastings, who for one whole week had paid her such attentions as had made her dream of him, and even drive round once on purpose to look at the house on Madison Square where the future Mrs. Hastings was to live. But his coolness afterwards, and his comments on her frivolity had terribly angered her, making her think that she hated him, as she had said to Anna. Now, however, as she remembered the drive and the house, she nestled closer to Arthur and told him all about it, fingering the buttons on his dressing-gown as she told him it, and never dreaming of the pang she was inflicting as Arthur thought how mysterious were God’s ways, and wondered that He had not reversed the matter and given Lucy to Thornton Hastings, rather than to him, who did not half deserve her.