u are rich, you are beautiful. You
may wear a coronet next time."

His face and glance were so darkly grave, that the covert sneer was
almost hidden. But she felt it.

"I shall never marry again, Captain Everard."

"Never? You surprise me! Six years--nay, seven, a widow, and with
innumerable attractions. Oh! you cannot mean it."

She made a sudden, passionate gesture--looked at him, then away.

"It is useless--worse than useless, folly, madness, to lift the veil
from the irrevocable past. But don't you think, don't you, Lady
Thetford, that you might have been equally happy if you had married
_me_?"

She made no reply. She stood gazing seaward, cold and still.

"I was madly, insanely, absurdly in love with pretty Ada Vandeleur in
those days, and I think I would have made her a good husband; better,
Heaven forgive me, than I ever made my poor dead wife. But you were wise
and ambitious, my pretty Ada, and bartered your black eyes and raven
ringlets to a higher bidder. You jilted me in cold blood, poor love sick
devil that I was, and reigned resplendent as my Lady Thetford. Ah! you
knew how to choose the better part, my pretty Ada."

"Captain Everard, I am sorry for the past--I have atoned, if suffering
can atone. Have a little pity, and speak of it no more!"

He stood and looked at her silently, gravely. Then he said in a voice
deep and calm.

"We are both free. Will you marry me now, Ada?"

"I cannot."

"But I love you--I have always loved you. And you--I used to think you
loved me."

He was strangely calm and passionless, voice and glance, and face. But
Lady Thetford had covered her face, and was sobbing.

"I did--I do--I always have! But I cannot marry you. I will love you all
my life; but don't, _don't_ ask me to be your wife."

"As you please!" he said, in the same passionless voice. "I think it is
best myself; for the George Everard of to-day is not the George Everard
who loved you eight years ago. We would not be happy--I know that. Ada,
is that your son?"

"Yes."

"I should like to look at him. Here, my little baronet! I want to see
you."

The boy, who had been looking curiously at the stranger, ran up at a
sign from his mother. The tall captain lifted him in his arms and gazed
in his small, thin face, with which his bright tartan plaid contrasted
harshly.

"He hasn't a look of the Thetfords. He is your own son, Ada. My little
baronet, what is your name?"

"Sir Rupert Thetford," answered