through tears.

"Do you indeed love me like this, Maude? Somehow I never thought it."

"I love you better than the whole world. I love you enough to give up
everything for you."

The emphasis conveyed a reproach--that he did not "give up everything"
for her. But Lord Hartledon kept his head for once.

"Heaven knows my bitter repentance. If I could repair this folly of mine
by any sacrifice on my own part, I would gladly do it. Let me go, Maude!
I have been here long enough, unless I were more worthy. I would ask you
to forgive me if I knew how to frame the petition."

She released the hand of which she had made a prisoner--released it with
a movement of petulance; and Lord Hartledon quitted the room, the words
she had just spoken beating their refrain on his brain. It did not occur
to him in his gratified vanity to remember that Anne Ashton, about whose
love there could be no doubt, never avowed it in those pretty speeches.

"Well?" said Mr. Carr, when he got back to the dining-room.

"It is not well, Carr; it is ill. There can be no release. The old
dowager won't have it."

"But surely you will not resign Miss Ashton for Lady Maude!" cried the
barrister, after a pause of amazement.

"I resign both; I see that I cannot do anything else in honour. Excuse
me, Carr, but I'd rather not say any more about it just now; I feel half
maddened."

"Elster's folly," mentally spoke Thomas Carr.

CHAPTER XVII.

AN AGREEABLE WEDDING.

That circumstances, combined with the countess-dowager, worked terribly
against Lord Hartledon, events proved. Had the Ashtons remained at the
Rectory all might have been well; but they went away, and he was left to
any influence that might be brought to bear upon him.

How the climax was accomplished the world never knew. Lord Hartledon
himself did not know the whole of it for a long while. As if unwilling to
trust himself longer in dangerous companionship, he went up to town with
Thomas Carr. Whilst there he received a letter from Cannes, written by
Dr. Ashton; a letter that angered him.

It was a cool letter, a vein of contemptuous anger running through it;
meant to be hidden, but nevertheless perceptible to Lord Hartledon. Its
purport was to forbid all correspondence between him and Miss Ashton:
things had better "remain in abeyance" until they met, ran the words,
"if indeed any relations were ever renewed between them again."

It might have angered Lord Hartledon more tha