't mind it. I know you can't help it. But listen. I want to marry her
because she is beautiful and because I know she is good. But if she is in
love with Hamilton, as report says she is, I should not want to inflict
my suit upon her. I know that at best I am no genius, but I am not so
great a fool as to seek an opportunity to make myself appear more stupid
than I am. Of course she can never marry Hamilton, but a hopeless love
clings to a woman as burning oil to the skin and is well-nigh as
impossible to extinguish. Therefore I beg you tell me. Shall I beat a
retreat and take care of my wounded, or shall I continue the battle?"

"I should not trouble myself about the wounded," I answered, reluctant to
evade the truth, for he was an honest soul, very much in earnest.

"But do you speak honestly?" he asked, mopping the perspiration from his
face with the tablecloth. "She laughs when I speak seriously, but I have
hoped that it was because of my damnable manner of speech rather than my
suit. Tell me, what do you think about it? Is she in love with Hamilton?"

His appeal was hard to resist, but I answered evasively in the spirit if
not the letter of a lie: "Thus much I know. My cousin has seen very
little of Hamilton--so little that it appears almost impossible for one
of her sound judgment and cool blood to have fallen in love with him. I
can swear that she has not, nor ever has had, a thought of marrying him.
She had better kill herself."

"Ah, that's all true enough," he answered. "And now that he is in
disgrace, with a noose awaiting him on Tyburn, it is of course impossible
for her to marry him. But you see, my dear fellow, she may love him.
Nelly Gwynn says she does."

"Yes," I replied. "Nelly set the story afloat. Her tongue is self acting.
But she had no reason to do so save in her imagination and her love of
talking. Half the troubles in life are caused by your automatic talkers."

I then told him of my cousin's visit with Nelly to the Old Swan, laying
emphasis on Frances's refusal to recognize Hamilton, but saying nothing
of the fight that followed.

"I am glad to learn the truth, if it is the truth," lisped his Lordship,
musingly.

"If you would know the real danger to Frances, you must look higher,"
I said, cautiously refraining from being too explicit. "There is one
whom my cousin scorns, but from whom she is in hourly peril. There is no
length to which he would not go, no crime, however dastardly, he woul