"No," he thundered, gripping her hand. "I sent that to you!"
"To—me?" fell from her lips.
"Yes, to you! The diamond thing I sent to her—listen and believe me, Leslie. Look in my eyes! Ah, dearest, do you think—how could you ever have thought—that I would be false to you? Why, I should never have believed you false to me, though an angel had whispered it. I sent the pendant to her because we had been good friends, and—and—ah, I must speak openly—because I knew that she wished we might be something more. It was a parting gift—a parting gift—from friend to friend, that was all! But fate chose that I, like a fool, should misdirect the packages! Leslie, the portrait was for you, the diamonds for her! Ah, think, consider, dearest! Should I send such a thing to you? To you, whose taste is so pure and refined!"
She began to tremble, and he drew still nearer to her.
"Why—why—did you not come—and—tell me this sooner?" she almost wailed.
He hung his head for a moment, then he looked up and met her eyes steadily.
"Leslie, I will tell you all. I—I have wronged you cruelly. I have been a fool. Yes, so great, so insensate a fool as to believe that, having learned the imposition we had practised on you, having discovered that I was not the Duke of Rothbury, you repented of our engagement——."
"You were not the Duke of Rothbury," she said, her brows knit; "are you not?"
"Oh, if Dolph were only here!" he groaned. "No, dearest, I am not; and at that time there was little chance of my ever being the duke. It is Dolph—Mr. Temple—as we called him, who is the duke. It was a whim—a freak of his. Oh, you see!"