ore she had heard George Lechmere's story.

"You know what I have come for, Miss Greendale," he began at once.
"I think that you know how I feel towards you, and how deeply I
love you. I have come to ask you to be my wife."

"Before I answer you, Mr. Carthew," she said, calmly, "I must ask
you to listen to a story. It was told me here two days ago by a man
named George Lechmere. Do you know him?"

"I seem to have heard his name, though I cannot say where," he
replied, surprised at the coolness with which she spoke.

"He is a farmer's son, I believe, and he was an interested party,
though not the chief actor of the story. The chief actor, I suppose
I should say actress, was Martha Bennett. You know her?"

Carthew stepped back as if he had received a sudden blow. His face
paled, and he gave a short gasp.

"I see you know her," she went on. "She was a poor creature, I
fancy, and her story is one that has often been told before. She
threw away the love of an honest man, and trusted herself to a
villain. He betrayed the trust, took her away to America and then
cast her off, and she went home to die. Her destroyer did not
altogether escape punishment. He was attacked and pelted by her
father and his friends in the market place at Chippenham. You see,
it all happened in my neighbourhood, and the villain, not daring to
show his face in the county again, disposed of his estate."

"You don't believe this infamous lie?" Carthew said hoarsely.

"How do you know that it is an infamous lie, Mr. Carthew? I have
mentioned no names. I have simply told you the story of a hapless
girl, whom you once knew. Your face is the best witness that I can
require of its truth. Thank God I heard it in time. Had it not been
for that I might have been fool enough to have given you the answer
you wanted, for I own that I liked you. I am sure now that I did
not love you, for had I done so, I should not have believed this
tale; or if I had believed it, it would have crushed me. But I
liked you. I found you pleasanter than other men, and I even
fancied that I loved you. Had I not known this story, I might have
married you, and been the most miserable woman alive, for a man who
could play the villain to a hapless girl, who could stoop to so
mean and dastardly an action as to cripple a rival yacht, is a
creature so mean, so detestable, that wretched indeed would be the
fate of the woman that married him.

"Do not contradict it, sir," she said, ri