"Farewell, Matthew! farewell for ever!" she said; and her voice had a ring of pathos and despair in it that her hearers never forgot. Then she drew her veil over her face, and the next moment she was gone.
[CHAPTER XI.]
"AND YOU SHALL STILL BE LADY CLARE."
On leaving the library after the scene with Olive Deane, Gerald had whispered to Eleanor: "Don't open the sealed packet till you have seen me again. I shall be in the conservatory half an hour after luncheon."
To the conservatory Eleanor went at the time specified, taking the sealed packet with her, and there she found Gerald awaiting her arrival. There was a bright, happy look in his eyes, such as she had not seen in them since that never-to-be-for-gotten evening when he first took her in his arms and told her that he loved her. He came to meet her as soon as she opened the door, took both her hands in his, kissed her, and led her to a seat where they would be safe from interruption.
Eleanor did not feel at all like a young lady on whom fickle Fortune had been playing one of her strangest practical jokes; she did not feel a bit like the genteel pauper Lady Dudgeon had called her: she felt very, very happy. It was wrong of her to feel so--very wrong; but she could not help it.
"I dare say you thought my request a very singular one," said Gerald, as he sat down beside her, "but you will hear something still more singular before the day is over."
"This has been a day of surprises," answered Eleanor. "It seems like twenty years since yesterday."
"It will seem like twice twenty when you shall have heard all that I have to tell you."
He looked into her eyes, and in their shrinking depths he seemed to read a question which she was afraid to put into words: "Are you going to tell me that you love me no longer?"