"I feel"—steadily—"it is a gross rudeness my asking, and I know you need not answer me unless you like; but"—with a quick breath—"try to answer my question. Has anything passed between you and Chesney?"
"Not much," mildly: "one thrilling love-letter, and that ring."
"He never asked you to marry him?" with renewed hope.
"Oh, by the bye, I quite forgot that," indifferently. "Yes, he did ask me so much."
"And you refused him?" asks Guy, eagerly, intensely, growing white and cold beneath the moon's pitiless rays, that seem to take a heartless pleasure in lighting up his agitated face at this moment. But Lilian's eyes are turned away from his: so this degradation is spared him.
"No—n—o, not exactly," replies she.
"You accepted him?" with dry lips and growing despair.
"N—o, not exactly," again returns Miss Chesney, with affected hesitation.
"Then what did you do?" passionately, his impatient fear getting the better of his temper.
"I don't feel myself at liberty to tell you," retorts Lilian, with a provoking assumption of dignity.