“It would be a pretty little story for the society press,” he said, after a pause—­“How the bewitching Maryllia Vancourt resigned the brilliancy of her social life for a dream of love with an elderly country clergyman!  By Heaven!  No one would believe it!  But,”—­and he waited a minute, then continued—­“It’s a story that shall never be told so far as I am concerned—­if—­” He broke off, and looked meditatively at the end of his cigar.  “There is always an ’if’—­ unfortunately!”

Maryllia smiled coldly.

“That is a threat,”—­she said—­“But it does not affect me!  Nothing that you can do or say will make me consent to marry you.  You have slandered me already—­you can slander me again for all I care.  But I will never be your wife.”

“You have said so before,”—­he observed, placidly—­“And I have put the question many times—­why?”

She looked at him steadily.

“Shall I tell you?”

“Do!  I shall appreciate the favour!”

For a moment she hesitated.  A great pain and sorrow clouded her eyes.

“No woman marries a leper by choice!”—­she said at last, slowly.

He glanced at her,—­then shrugged his shoulders.

“You talk in parables.  Pardon me if I am too dull to understand you!”

“You understand me well enough,”—­she answered—­“But if you wish it, I will speak more plainly.  I dream of love—–­”

“Most women do!” he interrupted her, smilingly—­“And I am sure you dream charmingly.  But is a middle-aged parson part of the romantic vision?”

She paid no heed to this sarcasm.  She had moved a pace or two away from him, and now stood, her head slightly uplifted, her eyes turned wistfully towards the picturesque gables of the Manor outlined clearly in the moon against the dense night sky.

“I dream of love!”—­she repeated softly,—­while he, smoking tranquilly, and looking the very image of a tailor’s model in his faultlessly cut dress suit, spotless shirt front, and aggressively neat white tie, studied her face, her figure and her attitude with amused interest—­“But my dream is not what the world offers me as the dream’s realisation!  The love that I mean—­the love that I seek--the love that I want—­the love that I will have,”—­and she raised her hand involuntarily with a slight gesture which almost implied a command—­“or else go loveless all my days—­is an honest love,—­ loyal, true and pure!—­and strong enough to last through this life and all the lives to come!”

“If there are any!”—­interpolated Roxmouth, blandly.

She looked at him,—­and a vague expression of something like physical repulsion flitted across her face.

“It is no use talking to you,”—­she said—­“For you believe in nothing—­not even in God!  You are a man of your own making—­you are not a man in the true sense of manhood.  How can you know anything of love?  You will not find it in the low haunts of Paris where you are so well known,—­where your name is a byword as that of an English ‘milord’ who degrades his Order!”