as Lillian had said, he was not cruel, and he
did love her. The proud lip curled in scornful triumph as she thought
how dearly he loved her. She would appeal to his love, and beseech him
to release her.

She would beseech him with such urgency that he could not refuse. Who
ever refused her? Could she not move men's hearts as the wind moves
the leaves? He would be angry at first, perhaps fierce and passionate,
but in the end she would prevail. As she sat there, dreamy, tender
melodies stealing, as it were, from her fingers, she went in fancy
through the whole scene. She knew how silent the sleeping woods would
be--how dark and still the night. She could imagine Hugh's face,
browned by the sun and travel. Poor Hugh! In the overflow of her
happiness she felt more kindly toward him.

She wished him well. He might marry some nice girl in his own station
of life, and be a prosperous, happy man, and she would be a good friend
to him if he would let her. No one would ever know her secret.
Lillian would keep it faithfully, and down the fair vista of years she
saw herself Lord Airlie's beloved wife, the error of her youth repaired
and forgotten.

The picture was so pleasant that it was no wonder her songs grew more
triumphant. Those who listened to the music that night never forgot it.

Chapter XXXVII

Lionel Dacre stood for some minutes stunned with the shock and
surprise. He could not be mistaken; unless his senses played him
false, it was Lillian Earle whom he had mistaken for a maid meeting her
lover. It was Lillian he had believed so pure and guileless who had
stolen from her father's home under the cover of night's darkness and
silence--who had met in her father's grounds one whom she dared not
meet in the light of day.

If his dearest friend had sworn this to Lionel he would not have
believed it. His own senses he could not doubt. The faint, feeble
moonlight had as surely fallen on the fair face and golden hair of
Lillian Earle as the sun shone by day in the sky.

He threw away his cigar, and ground his teeth with rage. Had the skies
fallen at his feet he could not have been more startled and amazed.
Then, after all, all women were alike. There was in them no truth; no
goodness; the whole world was alike. Yet he had believed in her so
implicitly--in her guileless purity, her truth, her freedom from every
taint of the world. That fair, spirituelle form had seemed to him only
as a beautiful