"Let them talk. What does it matter?"

"Nothing to you, perhaps, but to me a great deal. I have a husband."

"As I know to my cost," he interpolated.

"Then don't let me know it to _my_ cost," she said pointedly. "Sit down and let us talk common sense."

Lambert did not obey at once. "I am only a human being, Agnes--"

"Quite so, and a man at that. Act like a man, then, and don't place the burden on a woman's shoulders."

"What burden?"

"Oh, Noel, can't you understand?"

"I daresay I can if you will explain. I wish you hadn't come here to-day. I have enough to bear without that."

"And have I nothing to bear?" she demanded, a flash of pa.s.sion ruffling her enforced calm. "Do you think that anything but the direst need brought me here?"

"I don't know what brought you here. I am waiting for an explanation."

"What is the use of explaining what you already know?"

"I know nothing," he repeated doggedly. "Explain."

"Well," said Lady Agnes with some bitterness, "it seems to me that an explanation is really necessary, as apparently I am talking to a child instead of a man. Sit down and listen."

This time Lambert obeyed, and laughed as he did so. "Your taunts don't hurt me in the least," he observed. "I love you too much."

"And I love in return. No! Don't rise again. I did not come here to revive the embers of our dead pa.s.sion."

"Embers!" cried Lambert with bitter scorn. "Embers, indeed! And a dead pa.s.sion; how well you put it. So far as I am concerned, Agnes, the pa.s.sion is not dead and never will be."

"I am aware of that, and so I have come to appeal to that pa.s.sion. Love means sacrifice. I want you to understand that."

"I do, by experience. Did I not surrender you for the sake of the family name? Understand! I should think I did understand."

"I--think--not," said Lady Agnes slowly and gently. "It is necessary to revive your recollections. We loved one another since we were boy and girl, and we intended, as you know, to marry. There was no regular engagement between us, but it was an understood family arrangement. My father always approved of it; my brother did not."

"No. Because he saw in you an article of sale out of which he hoped to make money," sneered Lambert, nursing his ankle.

Lady Agnes winced. "Don't make it too hard for me," she said plaintively. "My life is uncomfortable enough as it is. Remember that when my father died we were nearly ruined. Only by the greatest cleverness did Garvington manage to keep interest on the mortgages paid up, hoping that he would marry a rich wife--an American for choice--and so could put things straight. But he married Jane, as you know--"

"Because he is a glutton, and she knows all about cooking."

"Well, gluttony may be as powerful a vice as drinking and gambling, and all the rest of it. It is with Garvington, although I daresay that seeing the position he was in, people would laugh to think he should marry a poor woman, when he needed a rich wife. But at that time Hubert wanted to marry me, and Garvington got his cook-wife, while I was sacrificed."

"Seeing that I loved you and you loved me, I wonder--"

"Yes, I know you wondered, but you finally accepted my explanation that I did it to save the family name."

"I did, and, much as I hated your sacrifice, it was necessary."

"More necessary than you think," said Lady Agnes, sinking her voice to a whisper and glancing round, "In a moment of madness Garvington altered a check which Hubert gave him, and was in danger of arrest. Hubert declared that he would give up the check if I married him. I did so, to save my brother and the family name."

"Oh, Agnes!" Lambert jumped up. "I never knew this."

"It was not necessary to tell you. I made the excuse of saving the family name and property generally. You thought it was merely the bankruptcy court, but I knew that it meant the criminal court. However, I married Hubert, and he put the check in the fire in my presence and in Garvington's. He has also fulfilled his share of the bargain which he made when he bought me, and has paid off a great many of the mortgages.

However, Garvington became too outrageous in his demands, and lately Hubert has refused to help him any more. I don't blame him; he has paid enough for me."

"You are worth it," said Lambert emphatically.

"Well, you may think so, and perhaps he does also. But does it not strike you, Noel, what a poor figure I and Garvington, and the whole family, yourself included, cut in the eyes of the world? We were poor, and I was sold to get money to save the land."

"Yes, but this changing of the check also--"

"The world doesn't know of that," said Agnes hurriedly. "Hubert has been very loyal to me. I must be loyal to him."

"You are. Who dares to say that you are not?"

"No one--as yet," she replied pointedly.

"What do you mean by that?" he demanded, flushing through his fair skin.

"I mean that if you met me in the ordinary way, and behaved to me as an ordinary man, people would not talk. But you shun my society, and even when I am at The Manor, you do not come near because of my presence."

"It is so hard to be near you and yet, owing to your marriage, so far from you," muttered the man savagely.

"If it is hard for you, think how hard it must be for me," said the woman vehemently, her pa.s.sion coming to the surface. "People talk of the way in which you avoid me, and hint that we love one another still."

"It is true! Agnes, you know it is true!"

"Need the whole world know that it is true?" cried Agnes, rising, with a gust of anger pa.s.sing over her face. "If you would only come to The Manor, and meet me in London, and accept Hubert's invitations to dinner, people would think that our attachment was only a boy and girl engagement, that we had outgrown. They would even give me credit for loving Hubert--"

"But you don't?" cried Lambert with a jealous pang.

"Yes, I do. He is my chosen husband, and has carried out his part of the bargain by freeing many of Garvington's estates. Surely the man ought to have something for his money. I don't love him as a wife should love her husband, not with heart-whole devotion, that is. But I give him loyalty, and I respect him, and I try to make him happy in every way. I do my part, Noel, as you do yours. Since I have been compelled to sacrifice love for money, at least let us be true to the sacrifice."

"You didn't sacrifice yourself wholly for money."

"No, I did not. It was because of Garvington's crime. But no one knows of that, and no one ever shall know. In fact, so happy am I and Hubert--"

"Happy?" said Lambert wincing.

"Yes," she declared firmly. "He thinks so, and whatever unhappiness I may feel, I conceal from him. But you must come to The Manor, and meet me here, there, and everywhere, so that people shall not say, as they are doing, that you are dying of love, and that, because I am a greedy fortune-hunter, I ruined your life."

"They do not dare. I have not heard any--"

"What can you hear in this jungle?" interrupted Lady Agnes with scorn.