"'Wasting my time.' I repeated that phrase over and over again. The only gleam of happiness I had found in this great world was looked coldly upon by my mother, and called 'wasting my time.'
"I went home with my head and heart full of him, longing only for the hour to come when I should meet him again. Looking back, I pity myself, Earle Moray—I pity myself!"
CHAPTER XXXVII.
"HE MADE ME BELIEVE THAT I WAS THE WHOLE WORLD TO HIM!"
"Do I weary you, Earle Moray, with these details?" Lady Estelle asked, looking with wistful eyes into his face. "Out of my thirty-eight years, that was my only gleam of light—does it weary you that I like to dwell upon it?"
"No," he replied, "every word interests me; you cannot tell one too much."
"I used to wonder," she continued, "when I heard people say that love made or marred a woman's life. In my own mind I thought such words an exaggeration. I found that they were most fatally true—my love marred my life.
"That night I left the palace, with my heart and mind full of Ulric Studleigh, and the idea possessed a double charm for me because I was, as it were, forbidden to entertain it. The duchess, my mother spoke to me once more on the subject. We were going to a fete at Kensington Gardens. Before we started she called me to her.
"'Estelle,' she said, gravely, 'I hope you will not forget what is due to your position as daughter of the Duke of Downsbury. I hope you will not forget what is required and expected of you.'
"I told her that I hoped always to please her, and I intended then to do so.