eak! Do you?"

Nell looked up instantly.

"Yes!" she replied, in a low voice. "If you will go--forever!"

Sir Archie gazed at her as if he had suddenly become unconscious of the
earl's presence.

"My God!" he breathed. "You--you are treatin' me better than I deserve.
Yes, I am goin'," he said, turning fiercely to the earl, who had made a
slight movement of impatience. "But I want to say this. I want"--he
moistened his lips, as if speech were difficult--"to tell you--and--and
her--that--that what has taken place will never be spoken of by me while
I live. I am goin'--abroad. I shall not return for some time."

The earl made a gesture of indifference.

"Your movements can be of no interest to me," he said, "and I trust that
they may be of as little importance to this unhappy girl, now that she
knows the character of the man whom she was about to trust."

Sir Archie laughed--a laugh that sounded hideously grotesque at such a
moment; then he took up his hat and gloves; but he laid them down again.

"Will you give me a minute--three--with Miss Lorton, alone?" he asked,
biting his lip.

The earl hesitated for a moment, and glanced at Nell searchingly; then, as
if satisfied, he said:

"Yes, I will do so, on condition that you leave this house at the
expiration of that time. I will rejoin you when he has gone."

As he left the room, Sir Archie turned to Nell.

"Do you know what you have done?" he asked hoarsely, and almost
inaudibly. "Do you know what this means: that you have sacrificed
yourself for--for her?"

Nell had sunk into a chair, and she looked up at him, and then away from
him; but in that momentary glance he had read the light of an inflexible
resolution, an undaunted courage in the gray eyes.

"Yes, I know," she said. "He--he thinks, will always think, that it was
I----" She broke off with an irrepressible shudder.

Sir Archie's hand went to his mustache to cover the quiver of his lips.

"My God! it's the noblest thing! But--have you counted the cost--the
consequences?"

"Yes," she said. "But it does not matter. I--I am nobody--only a girl,
with no husband, no one who loves, cares for me; while she----Yes, I
know what I have done; but I am not sorry--I don't regret. I have your
promise?" she looked up at his strained face solemnly. "You will keep
it?--you will not break your word? You will go away and--and leave her?"

His hands clenched behind him, and he was silent for a moment; then he
said