Windham had proposed also, and been
rejected. This only was needed to his mind to complete the joke.

For two hours the servants at the villa heard singular noises in the
woods, and passers-by heard with awe the same mysterious sounds. It
was Obed enjoying the "joke." It was not until quite late that he had
fully exhausted it.

CHAPTER LXXIX.

MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING.

Meanwhile Lord Chetwynde and Zillah were left together. A few hours
before they had been sitting in this same room, alone, when Mrs. Hart
entered. Since then what wonders had taken place! What an overturn to
life! What an opening into unlooked-for happiness! For a few moments
they stood looking at one another, not yet able to realize the full
weight of the happiness that had come so suddenly. And as they
looked, each could read in the face of the other all the soul of
each, which was made manifest, and the full, unrestrained expression
of the longing which each had felt.

Lord Chetwynde folded her in his arms.

"What is all this?" he said, in a low voice. "What can it mean? I can
not yet believe it; can you? What, my darling, are we not to have our
stolen interviews any more? Have we no longer our great secret to
keep? Are you really mine? I don't understand, but I'm content to
hold you in my arms. Oh, my wife!"

Zillah murmured some inaudible protest, but her own bewilderment had
not yet passed away. In that moment the first thought was that her
own Windham was at last all her own in very truth.

"And are you sure," she said at last, "that you have got over your
abhorrence of me?"

Lord Chetwynde did not understand this question, but considering it a
joke, he responded in the customary manner.

"But what possible means could have induced you to leave Chetwynde
Castle at all?" he asked; for, as he had not yet heard her story, he
was all in the dark.

"Because you wrote that hideous, that horrible letter," said Zillah;
and as the memory of that letter came to her she made an effort to
draw away from his embrace. But the effort was fruitless.

"Hideous letter! What letter?"

"The last one."

"My darling, I don't know what you mean."

"Don't you remember how you reviled me?"

"I didn't; I don't understand."

"You called me a Hindu, and an imp."

"Good Heavens! what do you mean?"

"But you do not hate me now, do you? Tell me, and tell me truly, are
you sure that your abhorrence has all passed away?"

"Abhorrence!"

"Ah! y