"Yes," she gasped hoarsely. "I do not--I--cannot deceive you, Geoffrey, because I love you." The last sentence she uttered passionately, with a fierce fire burning in her eyes. "You are jealous of Andrew Beck, a man old enough to be my father. Well, I confess I was foolish to allow him to walk with me here with his arm around my waist; yet at that moment the indiscretion did not occur to me." "But he was speaking to you--whispering into your ready ears words of love and tenderness. He spoke in persuasive tones, as if begging you to become his wife," I said angrily, the very thought of the scene I had witnessed filling me with indignation and bitter hatred. "No, you are entirely mistaken, Geoffrey. No word of love passed between us," she said quietly, looking into my eyes with unwavering glance. I smiled incredulously. "You will perhaps deny that here, within six yards of this very spot, you stopped and burst forth into tears?" I exclaimed, with cold cynicism. "I admit that. The words he uttered were of sufficient significance to bring tears to my eyes," she replied vaguely. "He must have spoken words of love to you," I argued. "I watched you both." "I deny that he did, Geoffrey," she cried fiercely, starting up. "To satisfy you, I am even ready to take an oath before my Creator that the subject of our conversation was not love." "What was Beck persuading you to do?" I demanded. "No, no," she cried, as if the very thought was repulsive to her. "No, do not ask me. I can never tell you, never!" "Then there is a secret between you that you decline to reveal," I said reproachfully. She laughed a harsh metallic laugh, answering in a tone of feigned flippancy,-- "Really, Geoffrey, you are absurdly and unreasonably suspicious. I tell you I love no other man but yourself, yet merely because it pleases you to misconstrue what you have witnessed you brand me as base and faithless. It is unjust." "But your letter!" I cried. "I had no intention of conveying the idea that any secret existed between Mr Beck and myself. He was, as you well know, an old friend of my father's, and has known me since a child. Towards me he is always friendly and good-natured, but I swear he has never spoken to me of love." "But you cannot deny, Ella, that a secret--some fact that you are determined to keep from me--exists, and that if not of love, it was of that secret Beck spoke to you so earnestly in the garden here!" Her dry lips moved, but no sound escaped them. She shivered. I saw my question had entirely nonplussed her, and I felt instinctively that I had uttered the truth. At that instant, however, a servant crossed the lawn in the moonlight, and approaching, handed me a telegram, stating that Juckes, my man, had brought it over from Shepperton, fearing that it might be of importance. Hastily I thrust it into my pocket unopened, and when the servant was out of hearing I repeated the plain question I had put to my well-beloved.