"Can you ask me why?" he asked, bitterly. "Yes, because I can not understand at all why you are going to India. What pain is it you are running away from?" He started and looked at her keenly. Was it possible that she did not guess? Had she misunderstood him all along? His heart beat with a sudden hope. "I am fleeing from that misery that the poet has put into immortal doggerel," he said. "Have you never heard of it, Leonora? That pain which is "'Of all pains the greatest pain, To love and not be loved again?'" She looked at him with a new, strange light in her soft eyes that made his heart beat tumultuously. "Yes, I have heard of it," she said; "but I did not know that you were a victim to its pangs. Who is it that you love, Lord Lancaster?" "Is it possible you do not know?" he asked; and then he saw that her eyes were shining with hope, and her whole graceful form trembling. He took the small hands again into his, and she did not offer to take them away. "I will make a compact with you, Leonora," he said. "If I will tell you whom I love, will you then tell me to whom you have given your heart?" "Yes, I will tell you," she replied, with a soft, sweet laugh. "Listen, then," he said. "I have been in love with you, Leonora, ever since that first day I saw you in New York." "And I with you," she answered, glowing with happy blushes. "My darling!" he cried, and caught her in his arms and pressed her to his beating heart. "Then why have you been so cruel to me all the time?" "Because I thought you were going to marry Lady Adela, and I was so jealous and unhappy that I misunderstood you all the while," Leonora confessed, with shy frankness. CHAPTER XL. "Lady Lancaster will be very angry with us, will she not?" asked Leonora, lifting her head from his breast, where it had been resting a few silent, happy moments. "I have no doubt she will," he replied, with supreme indifference to his aunt's wrath. "She will not give you any of her money, I suppose?" pursued the girl. "No, not a penny, I am sure. But we can do without it, can we not, love?" he asked, fondly. "But will you never regret that you chose me instead of Lady Adela and your aunt's fortune? Can you bear poverty for my sake?" "I shall never regret anything, and for the rest I shall never know that I am poor. Having you, my darling, I shall always deem myself rich," he answered, fondly caressing her. "And you will never be ashamed of me?" anxiously. "Never, my darling." "Nor of poor Aunt West, who is only the housekeeper at Lancaster Park?" Then indeed he winced, but only for a moment, and he answered bravely: "She belongs to you, Leonora, and she is, besides, a good and worthy woman. I shall not be ashamed of her, but she must not serve at the Park any more; she shall be raised to a position befitting the aunt of the future Lady Lancaster." "She will leave the Park to-morrow. We are going to London for a week, then we sail for New York," said Leonora.