h a bow. I dared not look up at her face, but stood
with my eyes on the ground, waiting.

"'Lord Comyn,' says she, presently, with a quiver in her voice, 'before
I give you a reply you must first answer, on your word as a gentleman,
what I ask you.'

"I bowed again.

"'Is it true that Richard Carvel was in love with Miss Swain?' she
asked."

"And you said, Comyn," I broke in, unable longer to contain myself, "you
said--"

"I said: 'Dorothy, if I were to die to-morrow, I would swear Richard
Carvel loved you, and you only.'"

His Lordship had spoken with that lightness which hides only the deepest
emotion.

"And she refused you?" I cried. "Oh, surely not for that!"

"And she did well," said my Lord.

I bowed my head on my arms, for I had gone through a great deal that
day, and this final example of Comyn's generosity overwhelmed me. Then
I felt his hand laid kindly on my shoulder, and I rose up and seized it.
His eyes were dim, as were mine.

"And now, will you go to Maryland and be a fool?" asked his Lordship.

I hesitated, sadly torn between duty and inclination. John Paul could,
indeed, go to America without me. Next the thought came over me in a
flash that my grandfather might be ill, or even dead, and there would
be no one to receive the captain. I knew he would never consent to spend
the season at the Star and Garter at my expense. And then the image of
the man rose before me, of him who had given me all he owned, and gone
with me so cheerfully to prison, though he knew me not from the veriest
adventurer and impostor. I was undecided no longer.

"I must go, Jack," I said sadly; "as God judges, I must."

He looked at me queerly, as if I were beyond his comprehension, picked
up his hat, called out that he would see me in the morning, and was
gone.

I went slowly upstairs, threw off my clothes mechanically, and tumbled
into bed. The captain had long been asleep. By the exertion of all the
will power I could command, I was able gradually to think more and more
soberly, and the more I thought, the more absurd, impossible, it seemed
that I, a rough provincial not yet of age, should possess the heart of
a beauty who had but to choose from the best of all England. An hundred
times I went over the scene of poor Comyn's proposal, nay, saw it
vividly, as though the whole of it had been acted before me: and as I
became calmer, the plainer I perceived that Dorothy, thinking me dead,
was willing to let Comyn be