hter's finger, and pledged my
faith to her. I can not tell you what my love was like; it was a
fierce fire that consumed me night and day.

"I was to return and claim her in two years. Absence made me love her
more. I came back, rich in gold, my heart full of happiness, hope
making everything bright and beautiful. I went straight to
Knutsford--alas! she was no longer there! And then I heard that the
girl I loved so deeply and so dearly was Lord Earle's daughter.

"I did not dream of losing her; birth, title, and position seemed as
nothing beside my mighty, passionate love. I thought nothing of your
consent, but only of her; and I went to Earlescourt. My lord, I wrote
to her, and my heart was in every line. She sent me a cold reply. I
wrote again; I swore I would see her. She sent her sister to me with
the reply. Then I grew desperate, and vowed I would lay my claim
before you. I asked her to meet me out in the grounds, at night,
unseen and unknown. She consented, and on Thursday night I met her
near the shrubbery.

"How I remember her pretty pleading words, her beautiful proud face!
She asked me to release her. She said that it had all been child's
play--a foolish mistake--and that if I would give her her freedom from
a foolish promise she would always be my friend. At first I would not
hear of it; but who could have refused her? If she had told me to lie
down at her feet and let her trample the life out of me, I should have
submitted.

"I promised to think of her request, and we walked on to the border of
the lake. Every hair upon her head was sacred to me; the pretty, proud
ways that tormented me delighted me, too. I promised I would release
her, and give her the freedom she asked, if she told me I was not
giving her up to another. She would not. Some few words drove me mad
with jealous rage--yes, mad; the blood seemed to boil in my veins.
Suddenly I caught sight of a golden locket on her neck, and I asked her
whose portrait it contained. She refused to tell me. In the madness
of my rage I tried to snatch it from her. She caught it in her hands,
and, shrinking back from me, fell into the lake.

"I swear it was a sheer accident--I would not have hurt a hair of her
head; but, oh! My lord, pardon me--pardon me, for Heaven's sake--I
might have saved her and I did not; I might have plunged in after her
and brought her back, but jealousy whispered to me, 'Do not save her
for another--let her die