'Why, Mr.
Mordaunt, on the very day--the day we had the pleasant luncheon on the grass--when, as I thought, she had given you your quietus--'twas quite the reverse, and you had made a little betrothal, and duped the old people so cleverly ever after.' 'You have forgiven me, dear aunt,' said the young lady, kissing her very affectionately, 'but I will never quite forgive myself.

In a moment of great agitation I made a hasty promise of secrecy, which, from the moment 'twas made, was to me a never-resting disquietude, misery, and reproach.

If you, my dearest aunt, knew, as _he_ knows, all the anxieties, or rather the terrors, I suffered during that agitating period of concealment--' 'Indeed, dear Madam,' said Mordaunt--or as we may now call him, Lord Dunoran--coming to the rescue, ''twas all my doing; on me alone rests all the blame.

Selfish it hardly was.

I could not risk the loss of my beloved; and until my fortunes had improved, to declare our situation would have been too surely to lose her.