to tell me," says Florence, rising in her agitation, "that
you never spoke of love to Dora?"

"Certainly I spoke of love--of my love for you," he declares vehemently.
"That you should suppose I ever felt anything for Mrs. Talbot but the
most ordinary friendship seems incredible to me. To you, and you alone,
my heart has been given for many a day. Not the vaguest tenderness for
any other woman has come between my thoughts and your image since first
we met."

"Yet there was your love-letter to her--I read it with my own eyes!"
declares Florence faintly.

"I never wrote Mrs. Talbot a line in my life," says Sir Adrian, more and
more puzzled.

"You will tell me next I did not see you kissing her hand in the
lime-walk last September?" pursues Florence, flushing hotly with shame
and indignation.

"You did not," he declares vehemently. "I swear it. Of what else are
you going to accuse me? I never wrote to her, and I never kissed her
hand."

"It is better for us to discuss this matter no longer," says Miss
Delmaine, rising from her seat. "And for the future I can not--will
not--read to you here in the morning. Let us make an end of this false
friendship now at once and forever."

She moves toward the door as she speaks, but he, closely following,
overtakes her, and, putting his back against the door, so bars her
egress.

He has been forbidden exertion of any kind, and now this unusual
excitement has brought a color to his wan cheeks and a brilliancy to his
eyes. Both these changes in his appearance however only serve to betray
the actual weakness to which, ever since his cruel imprisonment, he has
been a victim.

Miss Delmaine's heart smites her. She would have reasoned with him, and
entreated him to go back again to his lounge, but he interrupts her.

"Florence, do not leave me like this," he pleads in an impassioned tone.
"You are laboring under a delusion. Awake from this dream, I implore
you, and see things as they really are."

"I am awake, and I do see things as they are," she replies sadly.

"My darling, who can have poisoned your mind against me?" he asks, in
deep agitation.

At this moment, as if in answer to his question, the door leading into
the conservatory at the other side of the room is pushed open, and Dora
Talbot enters.

"Ah, here is Mrs. Talbot," exclaims Sir Adrian eagerly; "she will
exonerate me!"

He speaks with such full assurance of being able to bring Dora forward
as a witness in