ng as one does not hear many times in a life. I have
never heard anything like it until that night.

Angus Egerton's sonorous voice broke in upon those tempestuous sobs
almost angrily:

'Augusta, this is supreme folly.'

The sobs went on for some minutes longer unchecked. I heard his step
sounding heavily as he walked up and down the room.

'I am waiting to hear the meaning of all this,' he said by and by.
'I suppose there is some meaning.'

'O Angus, is it so easy for you to forget the past?'

'It was forgotten long ago,' he answered, 'by both of us, I should
think. When my mother bribed you to leave Ilfracombe, you bartered
my love and my happiness for the petty price she was able to pay. I
was a weak fool in those days, and I took the business to heart
bitterly enough, God knows; but the lesson was a useful one, and it
served its turn. I have never trusted myself to love any woman since
that day, till I met the pure young creature who is to be my wife.
Her truth is above all doubt; she will not sell her birthright for a
mess of pottage.'

'The mess of pottage was not for me, Angus. It was my father's
bargain, not mine. I was told that you had done with me--that you had
never meant to marry me. Yes, Angus, your mother told me that with
her own lips--told me that she interfered to save me from misery and
dishonour. And then I was hurried off to a cheap French convent, to
learn to provide for myself. A couple of years' schooling was the
price I received for my broken heart. That was what your mother
called making me a lady. I think I should have gone mad in those two
dreary years, if it had not been for my passionate love of music. I
gave myself up to that with my whole soul; my heart was dead; and
they told me I made more progress in two years than other girls made
in six. I had nothing else to live for.'

'Except the hope of a rich husband,' said Mr. Egerton, with a sneer.

'O God, how cruel a man can to be a woman he has once loved!' cried
Mrs. Darrell passionately. 'Yes, I did marry a rich man, Angus; but
I never schemed or tried to win him. The chance came to me without a
hope or a thought of mine. It was the chance of rescue from the
dreariest life of drudgery that a poor dependent creature ever
lived, and I took it. But I have never forgotten you, Angus Egerton,
not for one hour of my life.'

'I am sorry you should have taken the trouble to remember me,' he
answered very coldly. 'For some years of my