'don't you know what it is? You know who Lord
Carbis was, I suppose?'

'I know he was a brewer; but really I have not taken the trouble to
study his antecedents.'

'He was called Carbis before he was made a peer,' she replied. 'I
suppose he was largely influenced to buy the Carbis estates by the fact
that they bore his own name.'

'So that my friend is called Jack Carbis. There is so much
topsy-turvyism in it that I can hardly realize it.'

'I think Paul Edgecumbe is a much nicer name,' she said suddenly. 'I
hope--I hope----; but if--if----'

'Do you realize,' I said, 'what it will mean to him if he stands by
what he said at that meeting the other night?'

'Yes, he will still be a poor man, I suppose. But what then? Isn't he
a thousand times bigger man now than he was as the fashionable Captain
Jack Carbis?'

'Perhaps you don't realize how he would wound his father,---destroy all
his hopes and ambitions.'

'Yes, that would be rather sad; but doesn't it depend what his father's
hopes and ambitions are?'

'Lorna,' I said, 'are you and Springfield engaged?'

She did not answer me for a few seconds; then, looking at me steadily,
she said, 'Why do you ask that?'

For the moment I almost determined to tell her what I believed I knew
about Springfield, and about the things of which I had accused him.
But I felt it would not be fair. If that time ever came, he must be
there to answer my accusations.

'I think you know why,' I replied. 'The change in my friend's
circumstances has not changed my love for him. Do you know, Lorna,
that he loves you like his own life?'

She was silent at this, and I went on, 'He spoke to you about it months
ago; there in yonder footpath, not half a mile away,--he told you he
had given his heart to you. It was madness then, madness,--because he
had no name, no career, no position to offer you. His past lay in a
mist,--indeed his past might have made it impossible for him to marry
you, even if you had loved him. You refused him, told him that what he
asked was impossible; but things have changed since then,--now he is a
rich man's son,--he can come to you as an equal.'

'But--but----' and then noticing the curious look on her face, I
blurted out:

'You're not going to marry Springfield, are you?'

'Yes,' she replied, 'I shall marry Colonel Springfield, if--if----but
there,'--and she stopped suddenly,--'I think it is scarcely fair to
discuss such things.'

After that