“Thank you,” she returned, while she wiped the tears which were falling fast; “it will be a great comfort to me if you will permit me to regard you as such. I feared I should incur your contempt by the confession I have made to-night; but I could better endure that than that your future should be ruined by hoping against hope.”
“Contempt!” he repeated, earnestly; “such a feeling I could never entertain for you; you have, instead, my deepest sympathy and respect. But if I ever meet and know the wretch who has played you false, let him beware; for I will surely make him repent most bitterly his treachery and baseness toward you,” he concluded, fiercely.
A faint smile of scorn curled Star’s lips.
Time would bring its own punishment to her faithless lover, she believed, and she had no desire that any one should act as her champion in this matter.
She had called him “Archibald Sherbrooke” purposely, for she felt assured that if, by any chance, Ralph Meredith should yet meet him, he would not recognize in Lord Carrol the man of whom she had told him.
CHAPTER XXXI.
A NOBLE RESOLUTION.
“You will remember that you have promised that I am still to be your friend; you will not avoid me and deny me the pleasure of your society because of what I have told you to-night?” Ralph pleaded, as he and Star drew near the entrance of the park, and knew that they would soon be rejoined by his sister and Mr. Rosevelt.
Star looked up at him with a grave face.
“You shall still be my friend. I will not avoid you if you will promise me that you will build no false hopes upon our friendship,” she said.
“How can I, when you tell me that there is no hope?” he asked, yet his voice trembled and was full of pain.