Miss Murray. I have, as I said before, a
perfect right to love you if I choose----" Elizabeth's eyes fell, and
the colour stole into her cheeks--"I would maintain that right against
all the world. But I want you to be merciful: I want you to listen for a
little while----"

"Not to anything that I ought not to hear, Mr. Stretton."

"No: to nothing that would wrong Mr. Percival Heron even by a thought.
Only--it is a selfish wish of mine; but I have been misjudged a good
deal in my life, and I do not want you to misjudge me--I should like you
to understand how it was that I dared--yes, I dared--to love you. May I
speak?"

"I don't know whether I ought to listen. I think I ought to go," said
Elizabeth, with an irrepressible little sob. "No, do not speak--I cannot
bear it."

"But in justice to me you ought to listen," said Brian, gently, and yet
firmly. He laid one hand upon hers, and prevented her from rising. "A
few words only," he said, in pleading tones. "Forgive me if I say I must
go on. Forgive me if I say you must listen. It is for the last--and the
only--time."

With a great sigh she sank back upon the stone seat from which she had
tried to rise. Brian still held her hand. She did not draw it away. The
lines of her face were all soft and relaxed; her usual clearness of
purpose had deserted her. She did not know what to do.

"If you had loved me, Elizabeth--let me call you Elizabeth just for
once; I will not ask to do it again--or if you had even been free--I
would have told you my whole history from beginning to end, and let you
judge how far I was justified in taking another name and living the life
I do. But I won't lay that burden upon you now. It would not be fair. I
think that you would have agreed with me--but it is not worth while to
tell you now."

"I am sure that you would not have acted as you did without a good and
honourable motive," said Elizabeth, trembling, though she did not know
why.

"I acted more on impulse than on principle, I am afraid,", he answered.
"I was in great trouble, and it seemed easier--but I saw no reason
afterwards to change my decision. Elizabeth, my friends think me dead,
and I want them to think so still. I had been accused of a crime which I
did not commit--not publicly accused, but accused in my own home by
one--one who ought to have known me better; and I had inadvertently--by
pure accident, remember--brought great misery and sorrow upon my house.
In all this--I coul