ime with some trifle on the mantel-piece. But as he turned his eyes on
Lucy at the conclusion of his sentence, he saw that the tears were
falling on her cheeks. The words, the ideas they conjured up, had jarred
painfully on every fibre of her heart. Lionel's light mood was gone.

"Lucy," he whispered, bending to her, his tone changing to one of
passionate earnestness, "I dare not stay here longer. There are moments
when I am tempted to forget my position, to forget honour, and speak
words that--that--I ought not to speak. Even now, as I look down upon
you, my heart is throbbing, my veins are tingling; but I must not touch
you with my finger, or tell you of my impassioned love. All I can do is
to carry it away with me, and battle with it alone."

Her face had grown white with emotion. She raised her wet eyes
yearningly to his; but she still spoke the simple truth, unvarnished,
the great agony that was lying at her heart.

"How shall I live on, with you away? It will be more lonely than I can
bear."

"Don't, child!" he said in a wailing tone of entreaty. "The temptation
from my own heart is all too present to me. Don't _you_ tempt me. Strong
man though I am, there are things that I cannot bear."

He leaned on the mantel-piece, shading his face with his hand. Lucy
stood in silence, striving to suppress her emotion from breaking forth.

"In the old days--very long ago, they seem now, to look back upon--I had
the opportunity of assuring my life's happiness," he continued in a low,
steady tone. "I did not do it; I let it slip from me, foolishly,
wilfully; of my now free act. But, Lucy--believe me or not as you
like--I loved the one I rejected, more than the one I took. Before the
sound of my marriage bells had yet rung out on my ears, the terrible
conviction was within me that I loved that other better than all created
things. You may judge, then, what my punishment has been."

She raised her eyes to his face, but he did not see them, did not look
at her. He continued--

"It was the one great mistake of my life; made by myself alone. I cannot
plead the excuse which so many are able to plead for life's
mistakes--that I was drawn into it. I made it deliberately, as may be
said; of my own will. It is but just, therefore, that I should expiate
it. How I have suffered in the expiation, Heaven alone knows. It is true
that I bound myself in a moment of delirium, of passion; giving myself
no time for thought. But I have never