"At that very moment he joined us. Lady Agnes turned to me.
"'I leave you in safe hands,' she said. 'I promised to look after little Nellie Plumpton, and I have not seen her yet.'
"Then she went away. It was kind of her in one sense, but wrong in another. I was terribly frightened. What should I do if my mother found me here in this grove of trees with Captain Studleigh? I remembered, too, that I had promised to be very distant and reserved with him: yet there I was, looking at him, blushing and smiling, utterly unable either to look or feel anything save happy.
"He saw, and was quick enough to detect the anxiety on my face.
"'Ah! Lady Hereford,' he said. 'I was a true prophet—I see it.'
"Then, without waiting for any answer, he began to talk to me about the fete. I forgot everything else in the wide, world except that I was happy and was with him.
"Earle Moray, the sun will never shine for me again as it did that day; the sky will never be so blue, the flowers so sweet and fair.
"When he saw Lady Agnes returning to us in the distance, he said, quickly:
"'You will not be unjust to me, Lady Estelle—you will not visit the sins of my race on me?'
"'No,' I said, 'I will never do that.'