"She never loved me," he said bitterly. "Not one word of regret—real regret. She would have felt and shown more if she had been parting with a favorite horse or dog. God! what women this world makes of them! They are all alike! There's not one of them can love for love's sake, who cares for the man instead of the money. Not one, from the dairymaid to the duchess! Thank Heaven! my disillusionment has come before, instead of after, marriage. Yes, I've done with them. There is no girl alive, or to be born, who can make me feel another pang."
As he spoke, he heard a voice calling him: "Mr. Vernon! Mr. Vernon!" And there, in the garden, which stood out on the hill like a little terrace, was Nell. She had taken off her hat, and the faint breeze was stirring the soft tendrils on her forehead, and her eyes smiled joyously down at him.
"Tea is ready!" she said, her voice full and round, and coming down to him like the note of a thrush. "Where have you been? Mamma is quite anxious about you, and I have had the greatest difficulty in convincing her that there has not been an accident, and that I had not left you at the bottom of the bay."
He smiled up at her, but his smile came through the darkness of a cloud, and she noticed it.
"Has—has anything happened?" she asked, as she opened the gate for him; and her guileless eyes were raised to his with a sudden anxiety. "Are you ill—or—or overtired? Ah, yes! that must be it. I am so sorry!"
He frowned, and replied, almost harshly:
"Thanks. I am not in the least tired. How should I be? Why do you think so?"
Nell shrank a little.
"I—I thought you looked pale and tired," she said, in a voice so low and sweet that he was smitten with shame.
"Perhaps I am a bit played out," he said apologetically, and passing his hand over his brow as if to erase the lines which the scene with Lady Lucille had etched. "Your convalescent invalid is a trying kind of animal, Miss Nell, and—and you must forgive it for snapping."