"Never!" she answers, with all the pride of the Campbells flushing her face and ringing in her voice.
"Thank you a thousand times," he exclaims. "Leslie Noble is not fit to claim the treasure of your love, Vera. And now, tell me—you will stay with Nella, will you not?"
She glances doubtfully at Lady Clive.
"I could not go into society, you know," she says. "I could not face the world after—after that," and the burning crimson rushes into her face.
"It shall be just as you please about that," her friend answers. "Only say that you will remain with us, dear."
And Lady Vera answers:
"I will stay."
And then the first beams of the early summer dawn peep into the room in wonder at their sad, white faces.
It has been hours since Lady Vera began the telling of the sad story of her early life and her parents' bitter wrongs, and now, as she bids them all a sad good-night, and goes to her room to rest, her heart is breaking with the bitterness of her pain.
"Father," she murmurs, lifting her heavy eyes from her sleepless pillow, "father, I have punished them for their sins, I have shamed them in the eyes of all the world, but my own heart is broken."