"I knew you would do it for me," she said in a low voice; "would understand."
Then, as if she wished the subject to be closed, she began to talk of his and Lucy's strange meeting, and their future.
"It is the greatest pity in the world that you should have happened to be passing the day Lucy was frightened by the wild horseman, for the Government will lose one of its best teachers."
"And I shall gain one of the best of wives!" he murmured. They talked for half an hour, and Leslie seemed as light-hearted as they, but presently she stole out of the room, looking over her shoulder in the doorway with a "good-night."
"Do you understand it?" whispered Lucy, as he took her in his arms to say farewell. "Does it mean that Leslie might have been a duchess?"
"Yes, I think so," he said. "I don't quite understand it; I feel as if I were groping in the dark with just a glimmer of light. But, anyhow, I know, I am sure that the fault, if there was any, was his, and I wish that she had left me free to tell him so and exact reparation."
"Ah, but that is just what you must not do!" said Lucy sternly. "It is just what Leslie does not want. You are to give him back the diamonds and say nothing excepting that she forgives him!"
He nodded with a sigh.
"Poor Leslie! How she must have suffered!"