"I will," breathed Violet. "I will try to do what is right. I ought not to sacrifice you if—if you love me as you say. I am weak and feeble and selfish, but I will do what is right."
Then Fitz rose and looked down upon her, pale and struggling with her weakness.
"I will leave you now," he said. "I am sure you are tired and—and excited."
And he raised her hand to his lips.
But before he could kiss it the curtain was pushed aside and the tall, white-haired Spaniard came before them.
Fitz dropped Violet's hand with a nervous start.
Violet herself rose to her feet and stared wildly, but the Spaniard paused only for one moment, then, fixing his dark eyes upon her face, bowed low, murmured gravely "Pardon, señora," and vanished as noiselessly as he had appeared.
Violet, seated on a footstool at her aunt's feet, told her all that night, and Mrs. Mildmay, as in duty bound, informed Howard Murpoint.
In some way, before night fell, the world had got at it, and the clubs were rumoring that Lord Fitz Boisdale was engaged to Miss Mildmay.
In a few days a rumor still more exciting and relishing was produced, to the effect that Lord Lackland had accepted the wealthy millionaire, Mr. Wilhelm Smythe, as suitor for the hand of Lady Ethel Boisdale.