At Love's Cost

She laughed and threw back her head with a defiant gesture.

"Yes--as if it mattered! As if anyone--even he--could separate us!

Besides, what he said was in a fit of temper, he was annoyed by your

surrendering the money. And he could not speak for me--could not

control me."

"Let me get a light," said Stafford.

"No matter," she said, as if she could not bear him to leave her side,

even for a moment. "Stafford, dearest, you will not think of, you will

forget, what he said? It was spoken in a moment of irritation. Oh, my

dearest, let me look at you--it is so long since I saw you, so long, so

long! How pale you are, and how weary looking!"

Her other arm went round his neck, and she would have drawn his face

down to her lips, but Stafford checked her.

"You should not be here," he stammered.

She laughed.

"How proud you are! Yes, and I love you for it! You think that I should

desert you, as most women would do!" She laughed again. "If you were a

pauper--"

"It is what your father called me," he said, gravely She smiled up into his gloomy eyes defiantly, temptingly.

"What does it matter? I am rich--my father is rich--"

Stafford winced and his face flamed, but she had turned aside for a

moment and did not see the effect of her words.

--"And you have more than wealth," she laughed. "I reminded him of

that, and it sobered him. Oh, believe me! for all his pretended

stoicism, my father values a title as keenly as most men, and at heart

is anxious to see his daughter a countess."

Stafford bit his lip.

"I will take you home now," he said. Something in his voice told her

that she had made a wrong step, that she had failed. With a cry she

clung to him more tightly, and drawing back her head, scanned his face.

"Stafford! You--you don't mean to leave me--to throw me off! Say

it--promise me!" She laughed hysterically and would have slipped to her

knees at his feet; but he held her firmly. "See, dearest, I would plead

to you, pray to you! I am--so afraid. But you won't do that--you won't

let anything separate us? Hush! there is my father. Stafford, you will

listen, you will agree!"

As Falconer knocked at the door, she released Stafford, but stood near

him, with her hand resting on his arm.