"Yes, I will tell you," he said; "I came to see you!"
"To see me?" said Margaret, flushing. Then the straight brows came together. "Lord Leyton, you should not have said that!"
"Why should I not?" he demanded, "if it's true—and it is true! Miss Margaret, I have been the wretchedest man in London these last two days."
"I doubt that," said Margaret quietly, and going on with her sketch.
"It's the truth. If there was a man condemned to be hanged, I'll wager he wasn't more wretched than I have been."
"Wicked people are always wretched—or should be, my lord," said Margaret coolly.
"And I am wicked. Yes, I know," he said; "I am the vilest of the vile, in your eyes. But it isn't for what I've done in the past that I'm so miserable, it is for what I said to you in the picture gallery the other morning. Miss Margaret, I behaved like a brute! I—I—said words that—that have made me wish I were dead——"
"That will do, Lord Leyton," said Margaret, interrupting him. "If you are so sorry there need be no more said excepting that I forgive you, and will forget them. I knew that you did not mean them at the time."
His face crimsoned, and his eyes grew almost fierce.
"Stop," he said; "I don't say that. I won't. I'm sorry I was rough; I'm sorry I behaved like a bear and blared and shouted, but I did mean what I said, and mean it still."