the misery of her
wasted years,--my brother's own wretchedness and faults aggravated a
hundredfold by his unhappy union with her--I must pause while it is yet
time, and recall a promise which I know I should make you unhappy if I
fulfilled. I ask your pardon that I deceived you, Lord Farintosh, and
feel ashamed for myself that I could have consented to do so."

"Do you mean," cried the young Marquis, "that after my conduct to
you--after my loving you, so that even this--this disgrace in your
family don't prevent my going on--after my mother has been down on her
knees to me to break off, and I wouldn't--no, I wouldn't--after all
White's sneering at me and laughing at me, and all my friends, friends
of my family, who would go to--go anywhere for me, advising me, and
saying, 'Farintosh, what a fool you are! break off this match,'--and I
wouldn't back out, because I loved you so, by Heaven, and because, as a
man and a gentleman, when I give my word I keep it--do you mean that you
throw me over? It's a shame--it's a shame!" And again there were tears
of rage and anguish in Farintosh's eyes.

"What I did was a shame, my lord," Ethel said, humbly; "and again I ask
your pardon for it. What I do now is only to tell you the truth, and to
grieve with all my soul for the falsehood--yes the falsehood--which I
told you, and which has given your kind heart such cruel pain."

"Yes, it was a falsehood!" the poor lad cried out. "You follow a fellow,
and you make a fool of him, and you make him frantic in love with you,
and then you fling him over! I wonder you can look me in the face after
such an infernal treason. You've done it to twenty fellows before, I
know you have. Everybody said so, and warned me. You draw them on, and
get them to be in love, and then you fling them away. Am I to go back
to London and be made the laughing-stock of the whole town--I, who might
marry any woman in Europe, and who am at the head of the nobility of
England?"

"Upon my word, if you will believe me after deceiving you once," Ethel
interposed, still very humbly, "I will never say that it was I who
withdrew from you, and that it was not you who refused me. What has
happened here fully authorises you. Let the rupture of the engagement
come from you, my lord. Indeed, indeed, I would spare you all the pain I
can. I have done you wrong enough already, Lord Farintosh."

And now the Marquis burst forth with tears and imprecations, wild cries
of anger, lov