Castle?"

"Yes."

"Oh, Heavens! Chetwynde Castle! What is this? Can it be a mockery?
What does it all mean? You! you! You of all others! my own! my
darling! _You_ can never deceive me," he cried, in piercing tones.
"Tell me, and tell me truly, what were you doing in Chetwynde
Castle?"

"Living there," said Zillah. "I lived there for years, till the Earl
died, and then I left, for certain reasons."

"Great God! What is it that you are saying?" He gasped for breath.

"Only the truth," said Zillah.

Lord Chetwynde held her hand still; his eyes seemed to devour her in
the intensity of their gaze. A thousand bewildering questions were in
his mind. What! Was not his wife even now in Florence? Was he not
familiar with her face? What did this mean? What utter mockery was
this! Yet every word of Zillah's went to corroborate the words of
Mrs. Hart.

As for Zillah, she saw his embarrassment, but interpreted it falsely.
"He is beginning to think," she thought, "that I am the one to whom
he was married. His old hate and abhorrence are returning. He is
afraid to make himself sure of it. He loves Miss Lorton, but hates
the daughter of General Pomeroy. When he finds out who I am he will
loathe _me_." Then while Lord Chetwynde stood silent in astonishment
and bewilderment, not understanding how it was possible for these
things to be, the thought flashed upon her mind about that last
letter. He had loved another. Inez Cameron was his true love. She
herself was nothing. Bitterly came this remembrance to her mind. She
saw herself now cast out from his heart, and the love that had
awakened would die out forever. And in that moment, as these thoughts
rushed through her mind, as she recalled the words of that last
letter, the scorn and insults that were heaped upon herself, and,
above all, the fervent love that was expressed for another--as she
brought these things back which had once been so bitter, one by
one--hope departed, and despair settled over her heart.

But Lord Chetwynde clung to her hand. The thoughts of his heart were
widely different from those of hers, and her despair was exceeded by
his own. Who she was and what she was he could not understand; but
the thought that he had a wife, and that his wife was General
Pomeroy's daughter, was immovable in his mind.

"My darling!" he cried, in imploring tones, in which there was at the
same time a world of love and tenderness; "my own darling! You know
well that for you I w