"I know nothing of the kind"--hotly. "I only know that I have always loved you and only you, and that I shall never love another."

"You forget--Dora Talbot!" says Florence, in a very low tone. "I think, Sir Adrian, your late coldness to her has been neither kind nor just."

"I have never been either colder or warmer to Dora Talbot than I have been to any other ordinary acquaintance of mine," returns Sir Adrian, with considerable excitement. "There is surely a terrible mistake somewhere."

"Do you mean to tell me," says Florence, rising in her agitation, "that you never spoke of love to Dora?"

"Certainly I spoke of love--of my love for you," he declares vehemently.

"That you should suppose I ever felt anything for Mrs. Talbot but the most ordinary friendship seems incredible to me. To you, and you alone, my heart has been given for many a day. Not the vaguest tenderness for any other woman has come between my thoughts and your image since first we met."

"Yet there was your love-letter to her--I read it with my own eyes!"

declares Florence faintly.

"I never wrote Mrs. Talbot a line in my life," says Sir Adrian, more and more puzzled.

"You will tell me next I did not see you kissing her hand in the lime-walk last September?" pursues Florence, flushing hotly with shame and indignation.

"You did not," he declares vehemently. "I swear it. Of what else are you going to accuse me? I never wrote to her, and I never kissed her hand."

"It is better for us to discuss this matter no longer," says Miss Delmaine, rising from her seat. "And for the future I can not--will not--read to you here in the morning. Let us make an end of this false friendship now at once and forever."

She moves toward the door as she speaks, but he, closely following, overtakes her, and, putting his back against the door, so bars her egress.

He has been forbidden exertion of any kind, and now this unusual excitement has brought a color to his wan cheeks and a brilliancy to his eyes. Both these changes in his appearance however only serve to betray the actual weakness to which, ever since his cruel imprisonment, he has been a victim.

Miss Delmaine's heart smites her. She would have reasoned with him, and entreated him to go back again to his lounge, but he interrupts her.

"Florence, do not leave me like this," he pleads in an impa.s.sioned tone.

"You are laboring under a delusion. Awake from this dream, I implore you, and see things as they really are."

"I am awake, and I do see things as they are," she replies sadly.

"My darling, who can have poisoned your mind against me?" he asks, in deep agitation.

At this moment, as if in answer to his question, the door leading into the conservatory at the other side of the room is pushed open, and Dora Talbot enters.

"Ah, here is Mrs. Talbot," exclaims Sir Adrian eagerly; "she will exonerate me!"

He speaks with such full a.s.surance of being able to bring Dora forward as a witness in his defense that Florence, for the first time, feels a strong doubt thrown upon the belief she has formed of his being a monster of fickleness.

"What is it I can do for you?" asks Dora, in some confusion. Of late she has grown very shy of being alone with either him or Florence.

"You will tell Miss Delmaine," replies Adrian quickly, "that I never wrote you a letter, and that I certainly did not--you will forgive my even mentioning this extraordinary supposition, I hope, Mrs.

Talbot--kiss your hand one day in September in the lime-walk."

Dora turns first hot and then cold, first crimson and then deadly pale.

So it is all out now, and she is on her trial. She feels like the veriest criminal brought to the bar of justice. Shall she promptly deny everything, or--No. She has had enough of deceit and intrigue. Whatever it costs her, she will now be brave and true, and confess all.

"I do tell her so," she says, in a low tone, but yet firmly. "I never received a letter from you, and you never kissed my hand."

"Dora!" cries Florence. "What are you saying! Have you forgotten all that is past?"

"Spare me!" entreats Dora hoa.r.s.ely. "In an hour, if you will come to my room, I will explain all, and you can then spurn me, and put me outside the pale of your friendship if you will, and as I well deserve. But, for the present, accept my a.s.surance that no love pa.s.sages ever occurred between me and Sir Adrian, and that I am fully persuaded his heart has been given to you alone ever since your first meeting."

"Florence, you believe her?" questions Sir Adrian beseechingly. "It is all true what she has said. I love you devotedly. If you will not marry me, no other woman shall ever be my wife. My beloved, take pity on me!"

"Trust in him, give yourself freely to him without fear," urges Dora, with a sob. "He is altogether worthy of you." So saying, she escapes from the room, and goes up the stairs to her own apartment weeping bitterly.

"Is there any hope for me?" asks Sir Adrian of Florence when they are again alone. "Darling, answer me, do, you--can you love me?"

"I have loved you always--always," replies Florence in a broken voice.

"But I thought--I feared--oh, how much I have suffered!"

"Never mind that now," rejoins Sir Adrian very tenderly. He has placed his arm round her, and her head is resting in happy contentment upon his breast. "For the future, my dearest, you shall know neither fear nor suffering if I can prevent it."

They are still murmuring tender words of love to each other, though a good half hour has gone by, when a noise as of coming footsteps in the conservatory attracts their attention, and presently Captain Ringwood, with his arm round Ethel Villiers's waist, comes slowly into view.

Totally unaware that any one is in the room besides themselves, they advance, until, happening to lift their eyes, they suddenly become aware that their host and Miss Delmaine are regarding them with mingled glances of surprise and amus.e.m.e.nt. Instantly they start asunder.

"It is--that is--you see--Ethel, _you_ explain," stammers Captain Ringwood confusedly.

At this both Sir Adrian and Florence burst out laughing so merrily and so heartily that all constraint comes to an end, and finally Ethel and Ringwood, joining in the merriment that has been raised at their expense, volunteer a full explanation.

"I think," says Ethel, after awhile, looking keenly at Florence and her host, "you two look just as guilty as we do. Don't they, George?"

"They seem very nearly as happy, at all events," agrees Ringwood, who, now that he has confessed to his having just been accepted by Ethel Villiers "for better for worse," is again in his usual gay spirits.

"Nearly? you might say quite," says Sir Adrian, laughing. "Florence, as we have discovered their secret, I think it will be only honest of us to tell them ours."

Florence blushes and glances rather shyly at Ethel.

"I know it," cries that young lady, clapping her hands. "You are going to marry Sir Adrian, Florence, and he is going to marry you!"

At this they all laugh.

"Well, one of those surmises could hardly come off without the other,"

observes Ringwood, with a smile. "So your second guess was a pretty safe one. If she is right, old man"--turning to Sir Adrian--"I congratulate you both with all my heart."

"Yes, she is quite right," responds Sir Adrian, directing a glance full of ardent love upon Florence. "What should I do with the life she restored to me unless I devoted it to her service?"

"You see, he is marrying me only out of grat.i.tude," says Florence, smiling archly, but large tears of joy and gladness sparkle in her lovely eyes.

CHAPTER XIII.