CHAPTER VI.
"Oh! Miss Boyce, may I come in?"
The voice was Frank Leven's. Marcella was sitting in the old library alone late on the following afternoon. Louis Craven, who was now her paid agent and adviser, had been with her, and she had accounts and estimates before her.
"Come in," she said, startled a little by Frank's tone and manner, and looking at him interrogatively.
Frank shut the heavy old door carefully behind him. Then, as he advanced to her she saw that his flushed face wore an expression unlike anything she had yet seen there—of mingled joy and fear.
She drew back involuntarily.
"Is there anything—anything wrong?"
"No," he said impetuously, "no! But I have something to tell you, and I don't know how. I don't know whether I ought. I have run almost all the way from the Court."
And, indeed, he could hardly get his breath. He took a stool she pushed to him, and tried to collect himself. She heard her heart beat as she waited for him to speak.
"It's about Lord Maxwell," he said at last, huskily, turning his head away from her to the fire. "I've just had a long walk with him. Then he left me; he had no idea I came on here. But something drove me; I felt I must come, I must tell. Will you promise not to be angry with me—to believe that I've thought about it—that I'm doing it for the best?"