"No, I do not forget; but I must have deceived you and myself--"

"It is true, then, that you love me no more?"

"I suppose so."

"But, oh, Lilian, is it that your heart is only closed to me; or
is it--oh, answer truthfully--is it given to another,--to him--to
him--against whom I warned you, whom I implored you not to receive? Tell
me, at least, that your love is not gone to Margrave--"

"To him! love to him! Oh, no--no--"

"What, then, is your feeling towards him?"

Lilian's face grew visibly paler, even in that dim light. "I know not,"
she said, almost in a whisper; "but it is partly awe--partly--"

"What?"

"Abhorrence!" she said almost fiercely, and rose to her feet, with a
wild defying start.

"If that be so," I said gently, "you would not grieve were you never
again to see him--"

"But I shall see him again," she murmured in a tone of weary sadness,
and sank back once more into her chair.

"I think not," said I, "and I hope not. And now hear me and heed me,
Lilian. It is enough for me, no matter what your feelings towards
another, to learn from yourself that the affection you once professed
for me is gone. I release you from your troth. If folks ask why we two
henceforth separate the lives we had agreed to join, you may say, if
you please, that you could not give your hand to a man who had known the
taint of a felon's prison, even on a false charge. If that seems to you
an ungenerous reason, we will leave it to your mother to find a better.
Farewell! For your own sake I can yet feel happiness,--happiness to hear
that you do not love the man against whom I warn you still more solemnly
than before! Will you not give me your hand in parting--and have I not
spoken your own wish?"

She turned away her face, and resigned her hand to me in silence.
Silently I held it in mine, and my emotions nearly stifled me. One
symptom of regret, of reluctance, on her part, and I should have fallen
at her feet, and cried, "Do not let us break a tie which our vows should
have made indisoluble; heed not my offers, wrung from a tortured heart!
You cannot have ceased to love me!" But no such symptom of relenting
showed itself in her, and with a groan I left the room.

CHAPTER XLIII.

I was just outside the garden door, when I felt an arm thrown round me,
my cheek kissed and wetted with tears. Could it be Lilian? Alas, no!
It was her mother's voice, that, between laughing and crying, exclaimed
hysterically: "This