and then she whispered to him in a low, sweet voice:

"How did you guess my secret?"

"Your secret," he repeated, and kissed her again, because he did not
know what to say.

"Yes; how did you find out that I loved you?" she asked, simply. "I am
sure I have always tried to hide it."

"Your beautiful eyes told it," he said; and then a sudden shock of
horror came to him. Great Heaven! what was he doing? where was Leone?
She did not perceive it, but raised her blushing face to his.

"Ah, well," she said, sweetly, "it is no secret since you have found it
out. It is true, I do love you, and my eyes have not told you falsely."

Perhaps she wondered that he listened so calmly, that he did not draw
her with passionate words and caresses to his heart, that he did not
speak with the raptures lovers used. He looked pale and troubled, yet he
clasped her hand more closely.

"You are very good to me," he said. "I do not deserve it, I do not merit
it. You--you--shame me, Marion."

She looked at him with a warm glow of happiness on her face.

"It would not be possible to be too good to you; but I must not tell you
of all I think of you, or you will grow vain. I think," she continued,
with a smile that made her look like an angel, "I think now that I know
how much you love me I shall be the happiest woman on the face of the
earth."

He did not remember to have said how much he loved her, or to have
spoken of his love at all, but evidently she thought he had, and it came
to the same thing.

"How pleased Lady Lanswell will be!" said the young heiress, after a
time. "You will think me very vain to say so, but I believe she loves
me."

"I am sure of it; who could help it?" he said, absently.

He knew that he had done wrong, he repented it, and made one desperate
effort to save himself.

"Lady Marion," he said, hurriedly, "let me ask you one question. You
have heard, of course, the story of my early love?"

He felt the trembling of her whole figure as she answered, in a low
voice:

"Yes; I know it, and that makes me understand jealousy. I am very weak,
I know, but if you had gone to England, I should have died of pain."

He kissed her again, wondering whether for his perfidy a bolt from
Heaven would strike him dead.

"You know it," he said; "then tell me--I leave it with you. Do you
consider that a barrier between us, between you and me? You shall
decide?"

She knew so little about it that she hastily answered:

"N