e, good master," she said a little coldly.
"Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse, who, with all his faults of temper, is a man
of honor, confirmed that horrible story which appeared in the newspaper
and of which everyone in Thanet hath been talking these weeks past."

"And am _I_ not a man of honor?" he retorted hotly. "Because I am poor
and must work in order to live, am _I_ to be condemned unheard? Is a
whole life's record of self-education and honest labor to be thus
obliterated by the word of my most bitter enemy?"

"Your bitter enemy? ..." she asked. "Sir Marmaduke? ..."

"Aye! Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse. It seems passing strange, does it not?"
he rejoined bitterly. "Yet somehow in my heart, I feel that Sir
Marmaduke hates me, with a violent and passionate hatred. Nay! I know
it, though I can explain neither its cause nor its ultimate aim...."

He drew nearer to the stairs whereon she still stood, her graceful
figure slightly leaning towards him; he now stood close to her, his head
just below the level of her own; his hand had he dared to raise it,
could have rested on hers.

"Sue! my beautiful and worshiped lady," he cried impassionedly, "I
entreat you to look into my eyes! ... Can you see in them the reflex of
those shameful deeds which have been imputed to me? Do I look like a
liar and a cheat? In the name of pity and of justice, for the sweet sake
of our first days of friendship, I beg of you not to condemn me
unheard."

He lowered his head, and rested his aching brow against her cool, white
hand. She did not withdraw it, for a great joy had suddenly filled her
heart, mingling with its sadness, a sense of security and of bitter, yet
real, happiness pervaded her whole being: a happiness which she could
not--wished not--to explain, but which prompted her to stoop yet further
towards him, and to touch his hair with her lips.

Hot tears which he tried vainly to repress fell upon her fingers. He had
felt the kiss descending on him almost like a benediction. The exquisite
fragrance of her person filled his soul with a great delight which was
almost pain. Never had he loved her so ardently, so passionately, as at
this moment, when he felt that she too loved him, and yet was lost to
him irrevocably.

"Nay! but I will hear you, good master," she murmured with infinite
gentleness, "for the sake of that friendship, and because now that I
have seen you again I no longer believe any evil of you."

"God bless my dear lady," he