than you meant
they should."

"Do you mean to say you have answered the trust I had in you by using it
as an ambuscade from which you could set snares for my unsuspecting
tongue and be safe from detection while you did it? You have not done
this--surely you have not done this thing. Oh, one's enemy could not do
it."

This was an aspect of the girl's conduct which she had not clearly
perceived before. Was it treachery? Had she abused a trust? The
thought crimsoned her cheeks with shame and remorse.

"Oh, forgive me," she said, "I did not know what I was doing. I have
been so tortured--you will forgive me, you must; I have suffered so much,
and I am so sorry and so humble; you do forgive me, don't you?--don't
turn away, don't refuse me; it is only my love that is at fault, and you
know I love you, love you with all my heart; I couldn't bear to--oh,
dear, dear, I am so miserable, and I sever meant any harm, and I didn't
see where this insanity was carrying me, and how it was wronging and
abusing the dearest heart in all the world to me--and--and--oh, take me
in your arms again, I have no other refuge, no other home and hope!"

There was reconciliation again--immediate, perfect, all-embracing--and
with it utter happiness. This would have been a good time to adjourn.
But no, now that the cloud-breeder was revealed at last; now that it was
manifest that all the sour weather had come from this girl's dread that
Tracy was lured by her rank and not herself, he resolved to lay that
ghost immediately and permanently by furnishing the best possible proof
that he couldn't have had back of him at any time the suspected motive.
So he said:

"Let me whisper a little secret in your ear--a secret which I have kept
shut up in my breast all this time. Your rank couldn't ever have been an
enticement. I am son and heir to an English earl!"

The girl stared at him--one, two, three moments, maybe a dozen--then her
lips parted:

"You?" she said, and moved away from him, still gazing at him in a kind
of blank amazement.

"Why--why, certainly I am. Why do you act like this? What have I done
now?"

"What have you done? You have certainly made a most strange statement.
You must see that yourself."

"Well," with a timid little laugh, "it may be a strange enough statement;
but of what consequence is that, if it is true?"

"If it is true. You are already retiring from it."

"Oh, not for a moment! You should not say that.