to escape me if
he chose, and he instantly took advantage of it.

"Pardon me, Miss Halcombe," he said, still keeping his hand over his
face, "pardon me if I remind you that I have claimed no such right."

The few plain words which would have brought him back to the point from
which he had wandered were just on my lips, when Laura checked me by
speaking again.

"I hope I have not made my painful acknowledgment in vain," she
continued. "I hope it has secured me your entire confidence in what I
have still to say?"

"Pray be assured of it." He made that brief reply warmly, dropping his
hand on the table while he spoke, and turning towards us again.
Whatever outward change had passed over him was gone now. His face was
eager and expectant--it expressed nothing but the most intense anxiety
to hear her next words.

"I wish you to understand that I have not spoken from any selfish
motive," she said. "If you leave me, Sir Percival, after what you have
just heard, you do not leave me to marry another man, you only allow me
to remain a single woman for the rest of my life. My fault towards you
has begun and ended in my own thoughts. It can never go any farther.
No word has passed--" She hesitated, in doubt about the expression she
should use next, hesitated in a momentary confusion which it was very
sad and very painful to see. "No word has passed," she patiently and
resolutely resumed, "between myself and the person to whom I am now
referring for the first and last time in your presence of my feelings
towards him, or of his feelings towards me--no word ever can
pass--neither he nor I are likely, in this world, to meet again. I
earnestly beg you to spare me from saying any more, and to believe me,
on my word, in what I have just told you. It is the truth. Sir
Percival, the truth which I think my promised husband has a claim to
hear, at any sacrifice of my own feelings. I trust to his generosity
to pardon me, and to his honour to keep my secret."

"Both those trusts are sacred to me," he said, "and both shall be
sacredly kept."

After answering in those terms he paused, and looked at her as if he
was waiting to hear more.

"I have said all I wish to say," she added quietly--"I have said more
than enough to justify you in withdrawing from your engagement."

"You have said more than enough," he answered, "to make it the dearest
object of my life to KEEP the engagement." With those words he rose
from his chair, and