"It is very good of you to let me come down here, breaking in upon the rest which I have no doubt you want, and boring you with my own private affairs," said Joyce, seating himself in the window-sill close by the armchair which Lady Caroline had taken. "It is not very good of you to talk conventionalities, and to pretend that you don't know I have a deep interest in all that concerns you," replied Lady Caroline. "I have every reason to know it, and my last words were merely a foolish utterance of society talk----" "Which you always declare to despise, and which you know I detest." "Quite true; think it unspoken and absolve me." "I do; but if we are to have what you used to call a 'business talk,' we must have it at once. In half an hour Lord and Lady Hetherington and the luncheon will arrive simultaneously, and our chance is at an end. And you did not come from London, I suppose, to discuss tenant-right, or to listen to Lady Hetherington's diatribes against servants?" "No, indeed; with all deference to them, I came to see you, and you alone, to ask your advice, and to take it, which is quite a different thing, as I have done before in momentous periods of my life." "And this is a momentous period?" "Undoubtedly--as much, if not more so, than any." Had she any notion of what was coming? Her pale face grew paler; she pushed back the rippling tresses of her chestnut hair, and her large eyes were fixed on him in grave attention. "You alone of any one in the world, man or woman, know the exact story of my first love. You knew my confidence and trust, you knew how they were abused. You saw how I suffered at the time, and you cannot be ignorant of what is absolute fact; that to your advice and encouragement I owe not merely recovery from that wretched state, but the position to which I have since attained!" "Well?" "That first love fell dead--you know when! Ambition, the passion that supplied its place, was sufficient for a time to absorb all my thoughts, hopes, and energies. But, to a certain extent it has been gratified, and it suffices me no longer. My heart wants some one to love, and turns to one to whom it owes gratitude, but whom it would sooner meet with a warmer feeling. Are you not well, Lady Caroline?" "Quite well, thanks, and--and interested. Pray go on!" "To go on is difficult. It is so horrible in a man to have to say that he sees he has awakened interest in a woman, that she shows all unknowingly to herself, but still sufficiently palpable, that he is the one person in the world to her, that she rejoices in his presence, and grieves at his absence; worst of all, that all, this is pointed out to him by other people----" Lady Caroline's cheeks flushed as she echoed the words, "Pointed out to him by other people!"