rgive me that past folly and deceit, Nell! I'll teach you to forget in
time. Dearest, you loved me, did you not? You loved me until that night
of the ball--at the Maltbys'--when you discovered who I was!"

Back it all came to her, and she turned her face to him with grief and
reproach in her violet eyes.

"I was on the terrace," she said, almost inaudibly. "It is you who
forget. It was not because you kept your right name and rank from me. I
was on the terrace. I saw you and--and Lady Luce!"

He started, and his hand fell to his side. He could not speak for a
moment, the shock was so great, and in silence he recalled, saw as in a
flash of lightning, all the incidents of that night.

"You--you were there? You saw--heard?" he said, half mechanically.

"Yes," she said.

She was calm, unnaturally calm now, and her voice was grave and sad
rather than reproachful.

"I saw and heard everything. I saw her and Lady Chesney before you came
out. I heard Lady Luce telling her friend that you and she were engaged,
that you had parted, but that she still cared for you, and that you
would come back to her; and when you came out of the house on the
terrace, I saw her--and you----Oh, why do you make me tell you? It is
hateful, shameful!"

She turned her face away, as if she could not bear his gaze fixed on her
with amazement, and yet with some other emotion qualifying it.

"You saw Lady Luce come to meet me, heard her speak to me, saw her kiss
me?" he said, almost to himself; and even at that moment she was
conscious of the fact that there was no shame in his voice, none in his
eyes.

She made a motion with her hand as if imploring him to say no more, to
leave her; but he caught at her hand and held it, though she strove to
release it from his grasp.

"My God! and that was the reason? Why, oh, Nell! Nell! why did you not
tell me what you had seen? Why did you say no word of it in your letter?
If you had done so--if you had only done so!"

She looked at him sadly.

"Was it not true? Were you not engaged to her?" she asked, almost
inaudibly.

"Yes," he replied quickly. "I kept that from you; but it was true. You
read of the engagement in that paragraph in the stupid paper, you
remember? I ought to have told you, and I thought that it was because I
had not, as well as because I had concealed my rank, that you broke with
me. But, Nell, my engagement with her was broken off by herself; when
there was a chance of my losing t