hat perhaps you had learned to care a little for me; but when you
deliberately spent the day with another woman, sooner than with me, what
am I to think?"

"What do you mean?" he asked hoarsely.

"I saw you," she returned simply, "when we were at the station, auntie
and I, on the twenty-second----"

"The twenty-second!" he echoed, through blanched lips.

"Yes, you were at Waterloo Station with some one, I did not see her
face. But what does it matter now? If you had cared----" She stopped
abruptly.

"I do care," he reiterated passionately. "Heaven above knows that; but I
do not hope to make you believe me. Constance, I can give neither you
nor any living being the explanation of that awful day. But I swear to
you that the meeting was unsought by me. I could not help myself. I do
not know how all this has come about. I understood from Standon
that--that he was engaged to----"

"Muriel Branton," interrupted Constance softly. "He told me himself."

For a moment Adrien stared at her in stupefaction.

"If I had known we were at cross-purposes!" he exclaimed. "I see it all
now--when it is too late," and sinking down on the stone seat he buried
his face in his hands.

For a minute there was silence, broken at last by the rustle of Lady
Constance's dress as she came timidly towards him.

"Adrien," she murmured, very low indeed, but not so low that he did not
hear.

He looked up, gave one swift glance at her blushing face, then, with an
incoherent cry of delight, caught her in his arms.

"My darling!" he cried. "I love you. Believe that, though I failed you
so."

No further words were spoken--none were needed; then Adrien said gently:

"Darling, before we return, tell me, just once--let me hear it from your
own lips, that you love me; for I can scarcely believe I am awake."

"It is no dream, Adrien," she said, her face flushing and quivering with
pent-up emotion. "I love you, dear."

Again he clasped her in his arms and neither heard a step behind them.
It was not until a warning cough roused them, that Adrien started, and
became aware of the presence of Mr. Jasper Vermont.

CHAPTER XXII

While the preparations for the ball at Barminster Castle had been going
on apace, trouble and confusion reigned in the little village on the
banks of the Thames.

No sooner had Mr. Jasper Vermont taken his departure, than poor Lucy
Ashford sank on the floor of the shop, and burst int