s all sacrifice. I like the highest."

And then her eyes fell on the peaches, and she gave a little cry of
alarm.

"What will the duchess say?" she cried. "Oh, Lord Arleigh, let me go."

"Give me one kind word, then."

"What am I to say? Oh, do let me go!"

"Say, 'I like you, Norman.'"

"I like you, Norman," she said; and, taking up the peaches, she hastened
away. Yet, with her flushed face and the glad light in her happy eyes,
she did not dare to present herself at once before the duchess and Lady
Peters.

Chapter XXI.

Was there some strange, magnetic attraction between Lord Arleigh and
Madaline, or could it be that the _valet_, knowing or guessing the state
of his master's affections, gave what he no doubt considered a timely
hint? Something of the kind must have happened, for Madaline, unable to
sleep, unable to rest, had risen in the early morning, while the dew was
on the grass, and had gone out into the shade of the woods. The August
sun shone brightly, a soft wind fanned her cheeks.

Madaline looked round before she entered the woods. The square turrets
of Verdun Royal rose high above the trees. They were tall and massive,
with great umbrageous boughs and massive rugged trunks, the boughs
almost reaching down to the long, thick grass. A little brook went
singing through the woods--a brook of clear, rippling water. Madaline
sat down by the brook-side. Her head ached for want of sleep, her heart
was stirred by a hundred varied emotions.

Did she love him? Why ask herself the question? She did love him--she
trembled to think how much. It was that very love which made her
hesitate. She hardly dared to think of him. In her great humility she
overlooked entirely the fact of her own great personal loveliness, her
rare grace and gifts. She could only wonder what there was in her that
could attract him.

He was a descendant of one of the oldest families in England--he had a
title, he was wealthy, clever, he had every great and good gift--yet he
loved her; he stooped from his exalted position to love her, and she,
for his own sake, wished to refuse his love. But she found it difficult.

She sat down by the brook-side, and, perhaps for the first time in her
gentle life, a feeling of dissatisfaction rose within her; yet it was
not so much that as a longing that she could be different from what she
was--a wish that she had been nobly born, endowed with some great gift
that would have brought her near