d even if I had----"

"You never cared? Did you not love him, too?"

"No! no, indeed! I hated him. If Kingston says so she is lying about me,
as she is lying about my father. You say that you do not believe her
when she speaks against him: surely you won't believe her when she
speaks against me? Can't you trust my father's daughter, as well as my
father?"

The voice was almost passionate in its pleading: the lovely eyes were
eloquent of reproach. Maurice felt his whole being quiver: he was shaken
to the very depths. Why should she plead to him in this way if she had
no love at all for _him_? Why should she be so anxious that he should
trust her? And did he not? He could not look into her face and think for
one moment that she lied.

"I do trust--your father's daughter," he said, hoarsely. "I trust her
above all women living!--God knows that I do. You did not love Oliver?
It was not to _him_ that you made some promise you spoke of--some
promise against engaging yourself?"

"It was to my mother," said Lesley, simply. "I am sorry that I did not
make you understand."

He took a quick step nearer. "May I say more?"

She shook her head.

"But--some day?"

"Not now," she answered, softly. But a very faint and tremulous smile
quivered for one moment on her lips. "It is very wrong to talk of
ourselves just now. Go on with your story--tell me about my dear,
dearest father."

"I will," said Maurice. "I will do exactly what you wish--_just
now_"--with a great accent on the last two words. "We will talk about
that promise at a more fitting time, Lesley--I may call you Lesley, may
I not? There is no harm in that, for you are like a sister to my poor
Ethel, and you may as well let me be a brother to you, dear, _just now_.
Well, Lesley"--how he lingered over the name!--"Mrs. Trent says that she
returned to your house on Monday afternoon in order to warn your father
of what was going, on----"

"Oh! Did she really?"

"Yes, for your father tells me she did so. She also told him various
stories of Oliver's baseness, which he felt it his duty to inquire into,
and in order that, he might have an interview with Oliver, she arranged
with him to come that night to the house in Whitechapel, where she and
her husband were living. There she was to confront him with Oliver, and
she said that in _her_ presence he would not dare to deny that her tales
were true."

"But why did father agree to that? Why did he want to find out?"

"