"'But thou--thou art my last love, My dearest and my best! My heart but shed its outer leaves To give thee all the rest.'" What a persistent lover he was, thought the irritated listener. He wished that Lord Clive would go away, but to his chagrin he only renewed his suit, and presently Azalia said, wonderingly: "You would be willing to marry me after what I have told you?" "Willing and happy. I believe that I could teach you to forget the bitter past, and to love me," he replied, earnestly; then, eagerly, "Oh, Azalia--" She held out her beautiful hand to him. "Then I consent for you to make the effort," she said. It seemed to Laurie Meredith as if the point of a poisoned dagger had gone through his breast. His head drooped and he seemed dazed for a little. He came to himself with a start, and heard Azalia saying: "Now, leave me alone a little to think of my rash promise. You may tell my great-grandpapa, if you wish. It will make him very happy." He left her reluctantly, and Laurie Meredith stumbled out of his seat to go. She looked up at the sound, and their eyes met, hers full of bitter triumph, his dim with a misery she could not fathom. "I beg your pardon, Miss Brooke. I was here when you and Lord Clive came. I did not wish to interrupt you--it would have been embarrassing. But had I known I was to hear--" he paused, and she said: "My bitter confession and Lord Clive's proposal, you would have gone; but you stayed and heard--so now." "I should congratulate Lord Clive, and wish you a happy future, which I do, fair Countess of Clive to be," he answered, in a strained voice, and Azalia Brooke thanked him with superb self-possession. But could he have seen how the proud head drooped when he had gone, could he have read the secret thoughts of that tortured heart? "Oh, what if he knew that I saw him there, that my confession, my acceptance of Lord Clive were all to pique him to return to his old allegiance? Alas, my test has failed! I thought he was beginning to care for me again, that somehow he suspected that I was Flower. But no, he cares not. It is Jewel he loves, and I can doubt no longer. That marriage was a sham, as she said, and it was well that my baby died, poor little one, with the same dark brand on his birth as that upon his mother's! Alas, dare I keep my troth with Lord Clive without confessing my shameful birth? But then, Lord Ivon has forbidden me ever to confess the truth, so what can I do?" CHAPTER XLI. Lord Ivon and his party left for Washington the next day, and Jewel said to herself that they did not go one day too soon for their own good, for there was murder in her heart toward the beautiful Azalia Brooke. "If she had stayed any longer, and Laurie had continued to show his preference for her so plainly, I believe I should have poisoned her," she muttered, angrily, to herself.