"Will you forgive me?" he said, at last, and that was all. Without another word, he had offered to help her into the boat, help which Stella had disregarded, and had rowed her across to her uncle. Without a word, but with the same penitent, imploring look in his eyes, he raised his hat and left her—had gone home to the Hall, to his sister Lady Lilian, and to Lenore.
Ever since she had heard the name drop softly from Lady Lilian's lips it had rung in her ears. There was a subtle kind of charm about it that half fascinated, half annoyed her.
And now, leaning her head on her arm, and with her dark eyes fixed on the stars which glittered merrily in the sky, she put the question:
"Who is Lenore, uncle?"
He stirred in his chair and looked at her absently.
"Lenore, Lenore? I don't know, Stella, and yet the name sounds familiar. Where did you hear it? It's scarcely fair to spring a question like that on me; you might ask me who is Julia, Louisa, Anna Maria——"
Stella laughed softly.
"I heard it this morning, uncle. Lady Lilian told her brother as she left us that 'Lenore had come.'"
"Ah, yes," he said. "Now I know. So she has come, has she? Who is Lenore?" and he smiled. "There is scarcely another woman in England who would need to ask that question, Stella."
"No?" she said, turning her eyes upon him with surprise. "Why? Is she so famous?"