ere to-day.

CHAPTER VI.

"Oh! Miss Boyce, may I come in?"

The voice was Frank Leven's. Marcella was sitting in the old library
alone late on the following afternoon. Louis Craven, who was now her
paid agent and adviser, had been with her, and she had accounts and
estimates before her.

"Come in," she said, startled a little by Frank's tone and manner, and
looking at him interrogatively.

Frank shut the heavy old door carefully behind him. Then, as he advanced
to her she saw that his flushed face wore an expression unlike anything
she had yet seen there--of mingled joy and fear.

She drew back involuntarily.

"Is there anything--anything wrong?"

"No," he said impetuously, "no! But I have something to tell you, and I
don't know how. I don't know whether I ought. I have run almost all the
way from the Court."

And, indeed, he could hardly get his breath. He took a stool she pushed
to him, and tried to collect himself. She heard her heart beat as she
waited for him to speak.

"It's about Lord Maxwell," he said at last, huskily, turning his head
away from her to the fire. "I've just had a long walk with him. Then he
left me; he had no idea I came on here. But something drove me; I felt
I must come, I must tell. Will you promise not to be angry with me--to
believe that I've thought about it--that I'm doing it for the best?"

He looked at her nervously.

"If you wouldn't keep me waiting so long," she said faintly, while her
cheeks and lips grew white.

"Well,--I was mad this morning! Betty hasn't spoken to me since
yesterday. She's been always about with him, and Miss Raeburn let me see
once or twice last night that she thought I was in the way. I never
slept a wink last night, and I kept out of their sight all the morning.
Then, after lunch, I went up to him, and I asked him to come for a walk
with me. He looked at me rather queerly--I suppose I was pretty savage.
Then he said he'd come. And off we went, ever so far across the park.
And I let out. I don't know what I said; I suppose I made a beast of
myself. But anyway, I asked him to tell me what he meant, and to tell
me, if he could, what Betty meant. I said I knew I was a cool hand, and
he might turn me out of the house, and refuse to have anything more to
do with me if he liked. But I was going to rack and ruin, and should
never be any good till I knew where I stood--and Betty would never be
serious--and, in short, was he in love with her himse