ou. My dear, we will go into the dining-room.
You will find lunch ready when you come down, Lord Lovel." Then she
left him, and he stood looking for a while at the books that were
laid about the table.

It seemed to him to be an age, but at last the door was opened and
his cousin crept into the room. When he had parted from her at Yoxham
he had called her Lady Anna; but he was determined that she should
at any rate be again his cousin. "I could hardly speak to you
yesterday," he said, while he held her hand.

"No;--Lord Lovel."

"People never can, I think, at small parties like that. Dear Anna,
you surprised me so much by what you told me on the banks of the
Wharfe!" She did not know how to answer him even a word. "I know that
I was unkind to you."

"I did not think so, my lord."

"I will tell you just the plain truth. Even though it may be bitter,
the truth will be best between us, dearest. When first I heard what
you said, I believed that all must be over between you and me."

"Oh, yes," she said.

"But I have thought about it since, and I will not have it so. I have
not come to reproach you."

"You may if you will."

"I have no right to do so, and would not if I had. I can understand
your feelings of deep gratitude and can respect them."

"But I love him, my lord," said Lady Anna, holding her head on high
and speaking with much dignity. She could hardly herself understand
the feeling which induced her so to address him. When she was alone
thinking of him and of her other lover, her heart was inclined to
regret in that she had not known her cousin in her early days,--as
she had known Daniel Thwaite. She could tell herself, though she
could not tell any other human being, that when she had thought that
she was giving her heart to the young tailor, she had not quite known
what it was to have a heart to give. The young lord was as a god to
her; whereas Daniel was but a man,--to whom she owed so deep a debt
of gratitude that she must sacrifice herself, if needs, be, on his
behalf. And yet when the Earl spoke to her of her gratitude to this
man,--praising it, and professing that he also understood those very
feelings which had governed her conduct,--she blazed up almost in
wrath, and swore that she loved the tailor.

The Earl's task was certainly difficult. It was his first impulse to
rush away again, as he had rushed away before. To rush away and leave
the country, and let the lawyers settle it all as they