e, who was it you met tonight in your father's
grounds?"

He saw the question strike her as lightning sometimes strikes a fair
tree. The color faded from her lips; a cloud came over the clear,
dove-like eyes; she tried to answer, but the words died away in a faint
murmur.

"Do you deny that you were there?" he asked. "Remember, I saw you, and
I saw him. Do you deny it?"

"No," she replied.

"Who was it?" he cried; and his eyes flamed so angrily upon her that
she was afraid. "Tell me who it was. I will follow him to the world's
end. Tell me."

"I can not, Lionel," she whispered; "I can not. For pity's sake, keep
my secret!"

"You need not be afraid," he said, haughtily. "I shall not betray you
to Lord Earle. Let him find out for himself what you are, as I have
done. I could curse myself for my own trust. Who is he?"

"I can not tell you," she stammered, and he saw her little white hands
wrung together in agony. "Oh, Lionel, trust me--do not be angry with
me."

"You can not expect me," he said, although he was softened by the sight
of her sorrow, "to know of such an action and not to speak of it,
Lillian. If you can explain it, do so. If the man was an old lover of
yours, tell me so; in time I may forget the deceit, if you are frank
with me now. If there be any circumstance that extenuates or explains
what you did, tell it to me now."

"I can not," she said, and her fair face drooped sadly away from him.

"That I quite believe," he continued, bitterly. "You can not and will
not. You know the alternative, I suppose?"

The gentle eyes were raised to his in mute, appealing sorrow, but she
spoke not.

"Tell me now," he said, "whom it was you stole out of the house to
meet--why you met him? Be frank with me; and, if it was but girlish
nonsense, in time I may pardon you. If you refuse to tell me, I shall
leave Earlescourt, and never look upon your false, fair face again."

She buried her face in her hands, and he heard a low moan of sorrow
come from her white lips.

"Will you tell me, Lillian?" he asked again--and he never forgot the
deadly anguish of the face turned toward him.

"I can not," she replied; her voice died away, and he thought she was
falling from her chair.

"That is your final decision; you refuse to tell me what, as your
accepted lover, I have a right to know?"

"Trust me, Lionel," she implored. "Try, for the love you bear me, to
trust me!"

"I will never believe in