en
to the lips. With a strange swift pang at the heart, she saw how her few
words had changed it.

"To whom?" he said at last, hardly above a whisper.

"To Mr. Dare."

"Not that man who has come to live at Vandon?"

"Yes."

Another long silence.

"When was it?"

"Ten days ago."

"Ten days ago," repeated Charles, mechanically, and his face worked.
"Ten days ago!"

"It is not given out yet," said Ruth, hesitating, "because Mr. Alwynn
does not wish it during Lord Polesworth's absence. I never thought of
any mistake being caused by not mentioning it. I would not have come
here if I had had the least idea that--"

"You cannot mean to say that you had never seen that I--what I--felt for
you?"

"Indeed I never thought of such a thing until two minutes before you
said it. I am very sorry I did not, but I imagined--"

"Let me hear what you imagined."

"I noticed you talked to me a good deal; but I thought you did exactly
the same to Lady Grace, and others."

"You could not imagine that I talked to others--to any other woman in
the world--as I did to you."

"I supposed," said Ruth, simply, "that you talked gayly to Lady Grace
because it suited her; and more gravely to me, because I am naturally
grave. I thought at the time you were rather clever in adapting yourself
to different people so easily; and I was glad that I understood your
manner better than some of the others."

"Better!" said Charles, bitterly. "Better, when you thought that of me!
No, you need not say anything. I was in fault, not you. I don't know
what right I had to imagine you understood me--you seemed to understand
me--to fancy that we had anything in common, that in time--" He broke
into a low wretched laugh. "And all the while you were engaged to
another man! Good God, what a farce! what a miserable mistake from first
to last!"

Ruth said nothing. It was indeed a miserable mistake.

He rose wearily to his feet.

"I was forgetting," he said; "it is time to go home." And they went back
together in silence, which was more bearable than speech just then.

The peacocks were still pirouetting and minuetting on the stone
balustrade as they came back to the garden. The gong began to sound as
they entered the piazza.

To Ruth it was a dreadful meal. She tried to listen to Mr. Conway's
account of the gray cob, or to the placid conversation of Mr. Alwynn
about the beloved manuscripts. Fortunately the morning papers were full
of a recent for