"What is it, Madaline?" he asked, gently.
"I wish you would let me tell you all about it--how my mother, so gentle and good, came to marry my father, and how he fell--how he was tempted and fell. May I tell you, Lord Arleigh?"
"No," he replied, after a short pause, "I would rather not hear it. The duchess has told me all I care to know. It will be better, believe me, for the whole story to die away. If I had wished to hear it, I should have asked you to tell it me."
"It would make me happier," she said; "I should know then that there was no mistake."
"There is no mistake, my darling--the duchess has told me; and it is not likely that she has made a mistake, is it?"
"No. She knows the whole story from beginning to end. If she has told you, you know all."
"Certainly I do; and, knowing all, I have come here to beg you to make me happy, to honor me with your love, to be my Wife. Ah, Madaline, do not let your pride part us!"
He saw that she trembled and hesitated.
"Only imagine what life must be for us, Madaline, if we part. You would perhaps go on living with the duchess all your life--for, in spite of your coyness and your fear, I believe you love me so well, darling, that, unless you marry me, you will marry no one--you would drag on a weary, tried, sad, unhappy existence, that would not have in it one gleam of comfort."
"It is true," she said, slowly.