She felt his tears through her gown.

"What is past will never come between us," she said, brokenly, at last.
"I have cried over it too, Hugh; but I have put it from my mind. When
you told me about it, knowing you risked losing me by telling me, I
suddenly trusted you entirely. I had not quite up till then. I can't say
why, except that perhaps I had grown suspicious because I was once
deceived. But I do now, because you were open with me. I think, Hugh,
you and I can dare to be truthful to each other. You have been so to me,
and I will be so to you. I knew about _that_ long before you told me.
Lady Newhaven--poor thing!--confided in me last summer. She had to tell
some one. I think you ought to know that I know. And oh, Hugh, I knew
about the drawing of lots, too."

Hugh started violently, but he did not move.

Would she have recognized that ashen, convulsed face if he had raised
it?

"Lady Newhaven listened at the door when you were drawing lots, and she
told me. But we never knew which had drawn the short lighter till Lord
Newhaven was killed on the line. Only she and I and you know that that
was not an accident. I know what you must have gone through all the
summer, feeling you had taken his life as well. But you must remember it
was his own doing, and a perfectly even chance. You ran the same risk.
His blood is on his own head. But oh, my darling, when I think it might
have been you!"

Hugh thought afterwards that if her arms had not been round him, if he
had been a little distance from her, he might have told her the truth.
He owed it to her, this woman who was the very soul of truth. But if she
had withdrawn from him, however gently, in the moment when her
tenderness had, for the first time, vanquished her natural reserve, if
she had taken herself away then, he could not have borne it. In deep
repentance after Lord Newhaven's death, he had vowed that from that day
forward he would never deviate again from the path of truth and honor,
however difficult it might prove. But this frightful moment had come
upon him unawares. He drew back instinctively, giddy and unnerved, as
from a chasm yawning suddenly among the flowers, one step in front of
him. He was too stunned to think. When he rallied they were standing
together on the hearth-rug, and she was saying--he did not know what she
was saying, for he was repeating over and over again to himself, "The
moment is past. The moment is past."

At last her words conve