“I wonder,” she said, “if you will think me very vain for telling you that in those days I was very beautiful; people said wondrously beautiful. I am obliged to tell you, so as to make my story clear, and to make you understand why a brilliant, polished, worldly man like Sir Alfred Pelham married me.”
“I have good sight of my own,” said Mr. Eyrle, gravely, while Miss Hanson nodded and said:
“I have never seen a face one-half so fair as yours, my love.”
Juliet Payton smiled faintly.
“Beauty has been of but little use to me,” she said. “I am not even proud that it once was mine.
“Sir Alfred went to see my aunt, and soon captivated her. She spoke of no one else—he was so handsome, so generous, so noble. If she praised him, hoping to make me like him, and so to get rid of me, it was very cruel, and I pray to God to forgive her.
“Perhaps I need not dwell longer on my story. In a short time Sir Alfred became my lover, and I should say no girl ever had such a lover before. He was so gallant, so attentive, so devoted—he was so polished, with his high-bred, graceful manner; he was so different from every one else I knew. At first he bade me keep this love a secret from my aunt. I was not to give her the least hint of it, but after a time he changed his intentions, and told her he wished to make me his wife.
“Do not be shocked if I tell you how dearly I loved him. A girl’s first love is, I think, the most beautiful thing in life; and, Heaven help me! I did love him, my whole heart clung to him. I had no other thought, sleeping or waking, night or day.
“I used to watch for his coming, and at the first sound of his footsteps ran away, unable to meet him, dreading to meet him, lest he should see how passionately I loved him. I was too young and inexperienced to even ever so faintly imagine that he wanted to marry me for anything but love. Yet one thing recurs to my mind. We were in the garden, and I wanted to press some very beautiful leaves that had fallen from a plant. He took a bundle of what looked like old letters from his pocket and, tearing one in half, gave it to me.
“‘Save the leaves in that,’ he said. ‘It is a letter I wrote, but never sent.’