“You know she was your first love——”
“My first—and last—hallucination! You, Lilith, were my first and enduring love,” amended Hereward.
“Oh! thank Heaven!” breathed the young wife, almost inaudibly; then she said:
“You were not quite just to her, Tudor. The old baron whom she married was more of a father than a husband to her; he doted on her from her infancy. She was the only creature in the world that he loved—except her father.”
“She told me that.”
“He engaged himself to her that he might give her a title and leave her his fortune.”
“She did not need his fortune. She was the heiress of great wealth.”
“I know, but still he wished to leave his darling all he possessed.”
“He might have done that without marrying her.”
“Yes, but he wished also to give her his title; the title which—they said—he meant to ask of the emperor, in lieu of the payment of many millions loaned by him during the war. He wished to ennoble his pet.”