goes on slowly.

"What your weakness and foolish pride have cost _me_," he says, "goes
for nothing."

There is something in his face now that makes Dulce sorry for him. It is
a want of hope. His eyes, too, look sunk and wearied as if from
continued want of sleep.

"If by my reprehensible pride and weakness, of which you justly accuse
me, I have caused you pain--" she begins tremulously, but he stops her
at once.

"That will do," he says, coldly. "Your nature is incapable of
comprehending all you have done. We will not discuss that subject. I
have not brought you here to talk of myself, but of you. Let us confine
ourselves to the business that has brought me to-day--for the last time,
I hope--to the Court."

His tone, which is extremely masterful, rouses Dulce to anger.

"There is one thing I _will_ say," she exclaims, lifting her eyes fairly
to his. "But for _you_ and your false sympathy, and your carefully
chosen and most insidious words that fanned the flame of my unjust
wrath against him, Roger and I would never have been separated."

"You can believe what you like about that," says Gower, indifferently,
unmoved by her vehement outburst. "Believe anything that will make your
conduct look more creditable to you, anything that will make you more
comfortable in your mind--if you _can_. But as I have no wish to detain
you here longer than is strictly necessary, and as I am sure you have no
wish to be detained, let us not waste time in recriminations, but come
at once to the point."

"What point? I do not understand you," says Dulce, coldly.

"Yesterday, when passing by the southern end of the lake, hidden by some
shrubs, I came upon you and your cousin unawares, and heard you
distinctly tell him (what I must be, indeed, a dullard, not to have
known before) that you did not love me. This was the substance of what
you said, but your tone conveyed far more. It led me to believe you held
me in positive detestation."

"Oh! You were eavesdropping," says Dulce, indignantly.

Stephen smiles contemptuously.

"No, I was not," he says, calmly. He takes great comfort to his soul in
the remembrance that he might have heard much more that was not intended
for his ears had he stayed in his place of concealment yesterday, which
he had not. "Accident brought me to that part of the lake, and brought,
too, your words to my ears. When I heard them I remembered many trivial
things, that at the moment of their occurrence had s