rvously, "you didn't tell them that,
did you?"

She bent her lovely face, and I saw the smile in her eyes glimmering
through unshed tears.

"Yes; I told them that. Captain O'Neil protests he means to call you out
and run you through. And I said you would probably cut off his queue and
tie him up by his spurs if he presumed to any levity. Then he said he'd
tell Sir George Covert, and I said I'd tell him myself and everybody
else that I loved my cousin Ormond better than anybody in the world and
meant to wed him--"

"Dorothy!" I gasped.

"Wed him to the most, beautiful and lovely and desirable maid in
America!"

"And who is that, if it be not yourself?" I asked, amazed.

"It's Maddaleen Dirck, the New York heiress, Lysbet's sister; and you
are to take her to table."

"Dorothy," I said, angrily, "you told me that you desired me to be
faithful to my love for you!"

"I do! Oh, I do!" she said, passionately. "But it is wrong; it is
dreadfully wrong. To be safe we must both wed, and then--God knows!--we
cannot in honor think of one another."

"It will make no difference," I said, savagely.

"Why, of course, it will!" she insisted, in astonishment. "We shall be
married."

"Do you suppose love can be crushed by marriage?" I asked.

"The hope of it can."

"It cannot, Dorothy."

"It must be crushed!" she exclaimed, flushing scarlet. "If we both are
tied by honor, how can we hope? Cousin, I think I must be mad to say it,
but I never see you that I do not hope. We are not safe, I tell you,
spite of all our vows and promises.... You do not need to woo me, you do
not need to persuade me! Ere you could speak I should be yours, now,
this very moment, for a look, a smile--were it not for that pale spectre
of my own self which rises ever before me, stern, inexorable, blocking
every path which leads to you, and leaving only that one path free where
the sign reads 'honor.' ... And I--I am sometimes frightened lest, in an
overwhelming flood of love, that sign be torn away and no spectre of
myself rise to confront me, barring those paths that lead to you....
Don't touch me; Cato is looking at us.... He's gone.... Wait, do not
leave me.... I have been so wretched and unhappy.... I could scarce find
strength and heart to let them dress me, thinking on your face when I
answered you so cruelly.... Oh, cousin! where are our vows now? Where
are the solemn promises we made never to speak of love?... Lovers make
promises like that