eaning farther
towards her. "Ay, and why are you glad? Why? You are glad for Mr.
Caryll's sake. Do you deny it?"

She looked up at him quite calm and fearlessly. "I am glad for your own
sake, too."

His dark brooding eyes looked deep into hers, which did not falter under
his insistent gaze. "Am I to believe you?" he inquired.

"Why not? I do not wish your death."

"Not my death--but my absence?" he sneered. "You wish for that, do you
not? You would prefer me gone? My room is better than my company just
now? 'Tis what you think, eh?"

"I have not thought of it at all," she answered him with a pitiless
frankness.

He laughed, soft and wickedly. "Is it so very hopeless, then? You have
not thought of it at all by which you mean that you have not thought of
me at all."

"Is't not best so? You have given me no cause to think of you to your
advantage. I am therefore kind to exclude you from my thoughts."

"Kind?" he mocked her. "You think it kind to put me from your mind--I
who love you, Hortensia!"

She rose upon the instant, her cheeks warming faintly. "My lord," said
she, "I think there is no more to be said between us."

"Ah, but there is," he cried. "A deal more yet." And he left his place
by the spinet to come and stand immediately before her, barring her
passage to the door. "Not only to say farewell was it that I desired to
speak with you alone here." His voice softened amazingly. "I want your
pardon ere I go. I want you to say that you forgive me the vile thing I
would have done, Hortensia." Contrition quivered in his lowered voice.
He bent a knee to her, and held out his hand. "I will not rise until you
speak my pardon, child."

"Why, if that be all, I pardon you very readily," she answered, still
betraying no emotion.

He frowned. "Too readily!" he cried. "Too readily for sincerity. I will
not take it so."

"Indeed, my lord, for a penitent, you are very difficult to please. I
pardon you with all my heart."

"You are sincere?" he cried, and sought to take her hands; but she
whipped them away and behind her. "You bear me no ill-will?"

She considered him now with a calm, critical gaze, before which he was
forced to lower his bold eyes. "Why should I bear you an ill-will?" she
asked him.

"For the thing I did--the thing I sought to do."

"I wonder do you know all that you did?" she asked him, musingly. "Shall
I tell you, my lord? You cured me of a folly. I had been blind, and you
made me see. I