he house is still, almost
every one is asleep, for the cotillion, successful as only
unpremeditated things ever are, had lasted till the sun was high and the
dew on the grass of the garden was dry.

With a thickly-beating heart, nervous and eager as though he were a boy
of sixteen seeking his first love-tryst, he enters the small library far
before the hour, and waits for her there, pacing to and fro the floor.
The room is full of memories of her: here they have talked on rainy days
and have strolled out on to the lawns on fine ones; there is the chair
which she likes best, and there the volume she had taken down yesterday;
could it be only ten days since standing here he had seen her first in
the distance with the children? Only ten days! It seems to him ten
years, ten centuries.

The morning is very still, a fine soft rain is falling, wet
jessamine-flowers tap against the panes of the closed windows, a great
apprehension seems to make his very heart stand still.

As the clock points to the hour she enters the room.

She is very pale, and wears a morning gown of white plush, which trails
behind her in a silver shadow. He kisses her hands passionately, but she
draws them away.

"Wait a little," she says, gently. "Wait till you know--whatever there
is to know."

"I want to know but one thing."

She smiles a little sadly.

"Oh, you think so now because you are in love with me. But in time to
come, when that is passed, you will not be so easily content. If"--she
hesitates a moment--"if there is to be any community between our lives,
you must be quite satisfied as to my past. It is your right to be so
satisfied; and were you not so, some time or other we should both be
wretched."

His eyes flash with joy.

"Then----" he begins breathlessly.

"Oh! how like a man that is!" she says, sadly. "To think but of the one
thing, of the one present moment, and to be ready to give all the future
in pawn for it! Wait to hear everything. And first of all I must tell
you that Lord Gervase also last night asked me to marry him."

"And you!"

"I shall not marry Lord Gervase. But I will not disguise from you that
once I would have done so gladly, had I been free to do it."

Brandolin is silent: he changes color.

"I bade him come here for my answer," she continues. "He will be here in
a few minutes. I wish you to remain in the large library, so that you
may hear all that I say to him."

"I cannot do that. I cannot play