forgive you. It is Lady Elliston, I think, who must try and
forgive you, if she can."

Sir Hugh was again silent for a moment; then he laughed. "You dear
innocent!--Well--I won't defend myself at her expense."

"Don't," said Amabel, looking now away from him.

Sir Hugh eyed her and seemed to weigh the meaning of her voice.

He crossed the room suddenly and leaned over her:--"Amabel darling,--what
must I do to atone? I'll be patient. Don't be cruel and punish me for too
long a time."

"Sit there--will you please." She pointed to the chair at the other side
of the table.

He hesitated, still leaning above her; then obeyed; folding his arms;
frowning.

"You don't understand," said Amabel. "I loved you for what you never
were. I do not love you now. And I would never have loved you as you
asked me to do yesterday."

He gazed at her, trying to read the difficult riddle of a woman's
perversity. "You were in love with me yesterday," he said at last.

She answered nothing.

"I'll make you love me again."

"No: never," she answered, looking quietly at him. "What is there in you
to love?"

Sir Hugh flushed. "I say! You are hard on me!"

"I see nothing loveable in you," said Amabel with her inflexible
gentleness. "I loved you because I thought you noble and magnanimous;
but you were neither. You only did not cast me off, as I deserved,
because you could not; and you were kind partly because you are kind by
nature, but partly because my money was convenient to you. I do not say
that you were ignoble; you were in a very false position. And I had
wronged you; I had committed the greater social crime; but there was
nothing noble; you must see that; and it was for that I loved you."

Sir Hugh now got up and paced up and down near her.

"So you are going to cast me off because I had no opportunity for
showing nobility. How do you know I couldn't have behaved as you
believed I did behave, if only I'd had the chance? You know--you are
hard on me."

"I see no sign of nobility--towards anyone--in your life," Amabel
answered as dispassionately as before.

Sir Hugh walked up and down.

"I did feel like a brute about the money sometimes," he
remarked;--"especially that last time; I wanted you to have the house as
a sort of salve to my conscience; I've taken almost all your money, you
know; it's quite true. As to the rest--what Augustine calls my
dissoluteness--I can't pretend to take your view; a nun's view." He
looke