orget your
trouble, my dear!"

Nell made a gesture of indifference.

"It does not matter," she said dully. "I--I will go."

"Go?" he said.

"Yes. I will go--leave the house at once. I could not stay."

She looked round as if the walls were closing in on her.

Wolfer knit his brows perplexedly.

"I--I do not like the idea of your going. Where will you go?"

"Home," she said; and the word struck across her heart and almost sent
the tears to her eyes.

He went to the window and came back again.

"If--if you think it best," he said doubtfully. "I know that--that it
must be painful to you to remain here, that the associations of this
house----"

"Yes--yes," said Nell, almost impatiently.

"I need not say--indeed, I know that I need not--that no word of--of
what has occurred this morning will ever pass my lips," he said in a low
voice.

Nell looked up swiftly.

"Yes. Promise me, promise me on your honor that you will not tell Lady
Wolfer!" she said.

"I promise," said the earl solemnly.

Nell glanced at the clock and mechanically took up her gloves, which she
had torn from her hands.

"I will go straight to the station."

"You do not wish to see Ada?" he said, speaking of his wife by her
Christian name, for the first time in Nell's hearing.

"No," she said, quietly but firmly.

"Perhaps it is best," he murmured. "I will order a carriage for you--you
will have something to eat?"

"No, no; I will not! The carriage, please! Tell--tell Lady Wolfer that I
had to go home suddenly. Tell her anything--but the truth."

He inclined his head; then he went to the bureau and took out some
notes.

"You will let me give you these?" he asked, very humbly and anxiously.

Nell looked at the money with a dull indifference.

"What is owing to me, please. No more," she said.

"If I gave you that, it would leave me beggared," he said gravely.
"Please give me your purse."

He folded some notes and put them in her purse, and held out his hand.

"You will let me go to the station?" he asked.

"No, no!" said Nell. "I would rather go alone."

"You are not afraid?" he ventured, in a low voice.

Nell was puzzled for a minute; then she understood that he meant afraid
of Sir Archie. It was the last straw, and she broke down under it; but,
instead of bursting into tears, she laughed--so wild, so eerie a laugh,
that Wolfer was alarmed. But the laugh ceased suddenly, and she lowered
her veil. He held out his hand agai