ny right to
question me on matters which concern only myself."

"Great heavens; Margaret! Can anything concern you and not touch
me?"

"Once I believed it could not. I am older now."

"How can you speak thus coldly?" I cried, shocked at her incredible
calm. "If there is anything I can do or say, for Heaven's sake,
demand it. You cannot know what torture it is for me to see you
like this. I have dreamed of you, longed for you, despaired of you
through all these years, and I have a right to a different treatment.
Is it on account of Lucy?"

"Partly," she answered, somewhat moved. "Why did you never tell me
of her?"

"How could I?"

"There was nothing dishonourable about it."

"A thing does not need to be dishonourable to be ruinous. The
dishonour would have been in my speaking when I was pledged to
silence."

"Was it more honourable, think you, to allow a young girl to live
in a world of mock affection, and to expose her to what I have gone
through?"

"But did I ever by word or sign make the slightest move to engage
your affections, after I discovered the truth?"

"Pardon me, if I say that question could only serve to embarrass
a child. I will answer it by another. Does a man need to speak to
declare his love?"

"No, by heavens, he does not, Margaret!" I cried, throwing all
defence to the winds. "It speaks in every tone of his voice, in
every glance of his eye, and I would be a hypocrite beneath contempt
were I to pretend I did not always love you. I loved you from the
moment I first saw you, a girl, before Temple Bar, and I will love
you, God help me, till I die!"

"If this be the case, then, had I not a higher claim on you than
any woman living? Were you not bound to protect me against my
ignorance of such a barrier?"

"Absence, and I had hoped forgetfulness, would prove your best
protection," I replied, with happy inspiration.

"The implication is skilful," she said, quietly, without a trace
of the emotion I expected from my allusion, "but no mistake on my
part can serve to lessen your want of good faith towards me. Do
you think a woman would have considered any point of personal honour
where the life of one dearest to her hung on her sacrifice?"

"It is quite beyond my poor powers to judge of what a woman might
do." I replied, with a sudden rash indiscretion. "I find I have
but little knowledge of women or the motives which sway them."

"Then there is but little to be gained by continuing this