e men knew of it beside myself. You know whom
they were, I daresay. Two of them had proposed to you and had been
rejected; the other, as you say, was Winfield here. Whatever had
happened, no one would have known had they not told. One of the other
two has told you, which I do not know as yet; but I will know--mind
that. Perhaps you will tell me?"

Olive was silent.

"Well, that does not matter. I shall find out, yes, I shall find out,
and then----" He laughed bitterly, and any one who had looked into his
eyes would have seen murder there. "But there is another side to this
business, bad as it is, and no one feels its loathsomeness more than I.
Let me at least have the opportunity of putting the other side."

For the first time Olive seemed to unbend a little. She did not speak,
but she seemed ready, nay, even eager, to hear what he had to say.

"Let me say this, then," said Leicester. "Almost ever since the first
time I saw you I have repented of the whole business. It has haunted me
night and day. When I came to know you, and to realise how noble and
true you were, I scorned, I loathed myself. I would have given anything
to have undone what had been done. I dared not tell you, for I feared
you would drive me from your presence. No man honours a woman more than
I honour you, no man believes in a woman's nobility and honour more than
I believe in yours. As I said, as soon as I saw you I loathed what had
taken place, for I loved you."

"You mean," said Olive, "that you no longer came here because of your
desire to win this wager, but----"

"Because I loved you," said Leicester eagerly. He forgot the presence of
Winfield, and John Castlemaine. Only he and Olive were together, the
others did not exist. "Yes, that is true, I came only for you. More than
once I was tempted to tell you everything; but I was a coward--I was
afraid. I had learnt that you were a proud woman, and I felt sure that
if I told you, you would drive me from your presence. And I could not
bear the thought of it, Olive. You are everything to me, life, hope,
heaven! You know you are--yes, you know it. As for the other business, I
hated it, as I hated myself when I thought of it. My great desire was to
drive it from my mind. Surely you believe this, Olive--you must! Yes, I
deserve all you have said--all and more; but now that you know the
truth, now that you know what was begun in ghastly farce has ended in
terrible reality, now you know that all my l