“Yes, it is Star,” Lord Carrol said, with a tender smile, as he looked upon the portrait. “I am glad you recognize her, for I should be sorry if she had changed so much that you could not. This is a picture which I love, and which I keep for myself alone. It is very seldom that I show it to any one, and I have never told its history to any living being until I told it to you last night. As she stood there that morning in her modest beauty, severing that tress at my request, I began to love her with a love that will never die while I live. I have that little lock of gold here now, Mr. Meredith,” he said, touching the diamond-studded locket which hung from his watch-chain, “and untold wealth could not purchase it from me. Here is the cameo also which I gave her in exchange, and of which I told you, too, last night,” and he held up his left hand, on the little finger of which gleamed the ring that Josephine Richards had made of it. “Ah,” he added, with a sigh, “it is hard to think that she could believe me so false—so treacherous and cowardly, as to win her love and then cast it aside as of no value.”
“Yet it was very natural for her to think so under the circumstances,” Ralph returned, thoughtfully. “You must realize that yourself, for you say that on Saturday you declared your affection for her under the name of Archibald Sherbrooke, and won an expression of her own for you in return; while on the Monday following you appeared in Mr. Richards’ family as Lord Carrol, who, she had been told, was a suitor for his daughter’s hand. It does not seem strange to me that she should think the very worst of you. You certainly were in a false position before her, and it must have been a severe blow to her pride as well as to her affection; for, as we have seen, Miss Gladstone is not lacking either in self-respect or spirit.”
“No, I suppose it is not strange; but, oh! if she would but have given me one minute, I could have convinced her of her mistake, and all the sorrow that has followed might have been avoided,” sighed the young lord, as, with another fond glance at the picture, he covered it again and turned away.
“You will be more successful when you go to her again,” Ralph said, cheerfully.
“Yes,” Archie returned, with firmly compressed lips; “Miss Gladstone will listen to me when I go to her again. It is but right that she should hear my justification, whether she receives it favorably or otherwise.”
“I have no fear of the result,” his guest returned, smiling; “for Miss Gladstone acknowledged to me that, in spite of her belief in your unworthiness, her affection for you remained the same.”
A flush of joy shot over Lord Carrol’s face at this.
“Did she tell you that?” he asked, eagerly. “Then I will doubt no more; and I have you to thank for bestowing such happiness upon me as I never expected to know again.”
They spent a half hour longer looking at other pictures, but sweet sounds coming up again from the drawing-room distracted Ralph’s attention and tempted him below.
“Do I not hear the fair songstress of last night again?” he asked.