and tenderly,
he once more raised it to his lips and imprinted upon it tender kisses.

His words showed her that his affection was genuine. His promise not to
seek to unveil her past gave her courage, for she had all along been
suspicious that he was endeavouring to learn her secret. What would he
say, how would he treat her, if he ever knew the ghastly truth?

"Now, I wish to assure you," he went on, "that I have no desire whatever
that you should tell me the slightest thing which you may wish to regard
as your own secret. All of us, more or less, possess some family
confidence which we have no desire to be paraded before our friends. A
wife should, of course, have no secrets from her husband after marriage.
But her secrets before she becomes a wife are her own, and her husband
has no right to inquire into them. I speak to you, Jean, as a man of
the world, as a man who has sympathy for women, and who is cognisant of
a woman's feelings."

"Do you really mean what you say, Lord Bracondale?" she asked, raising
her serious eyes inquiringly to his.

"I certainly do. I have never been more earnest, or sincere, in all my
life than I am at this moment."

"You certainly show a generous nature," she replied. His assurance had
swept away her fears. She dreaded lest he should know the truth of the
tragedy of her marriage. She held Darnborough in fear, because he seemed
always to suspect her. Besides, what could that file of papers have
contained--what facts concerning her friend's tragic end?

"I hate to think of your wearing your life out in a sick-room, Jean," he
said. "It is distressing to me that you, whom I love so dearly, should
be doomed to a convent life, however sincere, devout, and holy."

"It is my sphere," she replied.

"Your proper sphere is at my side--as my wife," he declared. "Ah, Jean,
will you only give me hope, will you only endeavour to show me a single
spark of affection, will you try and reciprocate, to the smallest
extent, my love for you? Mine is no boyish infatuation, but the love of
a man whose mind is matured, even soured by the world's follies and
vanities. I tell you that I love you. Will you be mine?"

She still hesitated. His question nonplussed her.

How could she, the widow of a notorious thief dare to become Countess of
Bracondale!

He noticed her hesitation, and put it down to her natural reticence and
shyness. He loved her with all his heart and soul. Never, in all his
career, had h