made Nell feel as if she could not go, as if she must drain her cup of
misery to the dregs. "No, no; I am not faint--not now. It is hot, but I
am--all right."

She gazed with set face and panic-stricken eyes at the couple, as they
floated down the room again. It was Drake, but--how changed! He looked
many years older--and his face was stern and grave--sterner and graver
and sadder even than when she had first seen it that day the horse had
flung him at her feet. It had grown brighter and happier while he had
stayed at Shorne Mills--it had been transformed, indeed, for the few
short weeks he had been her lover; but the look of content, of joy in
life which it wore in her remembrance, had gone again. Had he been ill?
she wondered. Where had he been; what had he been doing?

But it did not matter, could not matter to her. He was back in England,
and dancing with the woman he loved--with the beautiful Lady Luce, whom
he had kissed on the terrace.

"And what do you think of his lordship?" Mrs. Hawksley asked, as if the
Right Honorable the Earl of Angleford were her special property. "I
wasn't far wrong, was I, Miss Lorton, when I said that he would be the
finest, handsomest man in the room?"

"No," said Nell, scarcely knowing what she answered. "That is----" She
put her hand to her lips. Even now she had not realized that her Drake
and the earl were one and the same man. "Oh, yes; he is handsome,
and----" she finished, as the old lady eyed her half indignantly. "But
I--I have made a mistake. I mean----What was Lord Angleford called
before he succeeded to the title?"

Mrs. Hawksley looked at her rather curiously.

"Why, Lord Selbie, of course," she said. "He ought, being one of the
Anglefords, to have been Lord Vernon, Drake Vernon; but his father was a
famous statesman, a governor of New South Wales and they made him a
viscount. Do you understand?" she asked, proud of her own knowledge of
these intricacies of the earl's names and titles.

Poor Nell looked confused. But it did not matter. She had learned
enough. Drake Vernon, who had made her love him, and had asked her to be
his wife, had been Lord Selbie. Why had he concealed his rank? Why had
he deceived her? He had seemed so honest and true, that she would have
trusted him with her life as freely as she had given him her love; and
all the while----Oh, why had he done it? Was it worth while to
masquerade as a mere nobody, to pretend that he was poor? Had he, even