oice, "you are wrong: I do not love Caspar
Brooke."

"What other motive can you have?"

She waited for a moment, and then said, still softly--

"I suppose I may as well tell you. I loved him once. In those first days
of our acquaintance--when he was disappointed in his wife and seeking
for sympathy elsewhere--I thought that he cared for me. I was mistaken.
Oliver, can you keep my secret? No other soul in the world knows of this
from me but you. I told him my love. I wrote to him--a wild, mad
letter--offering to fly to the ends of the earth with him if he would
go."

Oliver stared at her as if he could not believe his ears.

"And what answer did he make?"

"He made none--because he never saw it. That letter fell into Lady
Alice's hands. She did not know that it was the first that had been
written: she took it to be one of a series. She wrote a short note to me
about it; and the next thing I heard was that she had gone. But I know
that he never saw that letter of mine."

"All this," said Oliver, in a hard contemptuous voice, "does not explain
your present line of conduct."

She lifted her face from her hands. "Yes, it does," she said quickly.
"If you were a woman you would understand! Do you think I want her to
come back to him? No, if he cannot make me happy, he shall not be happy
at _her_ side. I shall never forgive her for the words she wrote to me!
If her daughter comes, Oliver, it is all the more reason why I should be
here, ready to nip any notion of reconciliation in the bud. It is hate,
not love, that dominates me: it is in my hatred for Caspar Brooke's wife
that you must seek the explanation of my actions. _Now_, do you
understand?"

"I understand enough," said Oliver, drily.

"And you will not interfere?"

"For the present I will not interfere. But I will not bind myself. I
must see more of what you are doing before I make any promises. Whatever
you do, you must not compromise yourself or me."

"Hate!" he repeated to himself scornfully as he left the house at a
somewhat later hour in the evening. "It is all very well to put it down
to her hate for Lady Alice. She is still in love with Brooke; and that
is the beginning and the end of it."

And Oliver was not far wrong.

CHAPTER VI.

LESLEY COMES HOME.

Caspar Brooke was a busy man, and he was quite determined that his
daughter's arrival should make no difference in his habits. In this
determination he was less selfish than stern: he