"I left Shorne Mills that day, and I sailed in the _Seagull_, determined that I would accept your sentence, that I would never harass or worry you, that, if it were possible, you should never be troubled by the sight of me. But, Nell, though I left you, I carried your image with me in my heart. I tried to forget you, but I could not. I have never ceased to love you; not for a single day have you been absent from my mind, not for a single day have I ceased to long for you!" She looked at him again, wonder and indignation dividing her emotion. There was truth in his accents, in his eyes. Had he forgotten Lady Lucille? "There was no more wretched and unhappy man on God's earth than I was at that time," he went on. "Nell, if you had been called upon to find a punishment heavy enough for the deceit which I practiced, I do not think you could have hit upon a heavier one. For I could not be rid of my love for you. I could not forget your sweet face; your dear voice haunted me wherever I went, and I moved like a man under a curse, the curse of weariness and despair." His voice almost broke, and he put his hand to his forehead as if he still felt the weight of the weary months. "Then came the news of my uncle's sudden death; but when I had got over my grief for him--he had been good to me, and I was fond of him!--even then I could find no pleasure in the inheritance which had fallen to me. Of what use was the title and the rest of it, if all my happiness was set upon the girl I had lost forever? I came home to do my duty, in a dull, dogged fashion, came home with the conviction that I should not be able to rest in England, that I should have to take to wandering again. I loved you still, Nell, but I hoped--see, now, I tell you the truth!--that I might at least get some peace, might learn to deaden my heart. And then, as the Fates would have it, I find you here, and----" He paused for a moment and caught his breath. "Hear that you were going to marry another man." Nell started slightly, and the color rose to her face. She had forgotten Falconer! "That was the last drop in my cup of misery. Somehow, I had always thought of you as the little girl of Shorne Mills, as--as--free. I had not reflected that it was inevitable that some other man should admire and love you. You see, you--you still, in some strange way, seemed to belong to me, though I knew I had lost you!" No words he could have uttered could have touched her more sharply and deeply than this simple avowal. She turned her head aside so that he might not see the quivering of her lips, the tenderness which sprang into her eyes. "That was the hardest blow of all that Fate had dealt me, Nell. It almost drove me mad to know that you once loved me, and yet that you were to be the wife of another man! It made me mad and desperate for a time, then I had to face it, as I had faced my loss of you. But, Nell----"