"Not always, but since we came to Appletop," she answered.
"As long ago as that, Constance, and you have never said a word about it to me! Do you think it was quite generous to keep it back?" I asked, in some humiliation that I should have been kept in the dark about so important a matter.
"What good would it have done, Gilbert? You knew us as we are, and was that not enough? What difference did his being the younger son of a lord make?"
"I don't know; but have you not known he was to fall heir to the title?" I asked, bewildered.
"Not certainly till to-day, though it has been likely these four years."
"These four years!" I answered, astonished at what she said; "and never a hint of it to me or any one."
"No, for papa did not want it known; and besides, his surviving brother, although an invalid, might still have outlived him."
"Now that you are what you are—and have been all along—Constance!" I answered, stammering and hardly conscious of what I was saying.
"Well, what about it?" she asked, in her simple way.
"Well, our plans—our marriage. Surely I am not going to hold you to it now that you have come into such prominence in the world," I answered, with a sinking heart.