supreme confidence in his affection?'

'Perfect confidence.'

'And you do not believe that mercenary considerations have any
weight with him? You do not think that he is eager to repair his
shattered fortunes? You think him all truth and devotion? He, a
_blasé_ man of the world, of three-and-thirty; a man who has outlived
the possibility of anything like a real attachment; a man who
lavished his whole stock of feeling upon the one attachment of his
youth.'

She said all this very quietly, but with a suppressed bitterness. I
think it needed all her powers of restraint to keep her from some
passionate outburst that would have betrayed the secret of her life.
I was now more than ever convinced that she had known Angus Egerton
in the past, and that she had loved him.

'You see, I am not afraid of his being put to the test,' Milly said
proudly. 'I know he loved some one very dearly, a long time ago. He
spoke of that yesterday. He told me that his old love had died out
of his heart years ago.'

'He told you a lie,' cried Mrs. Darrell. 'Such things never die.
They sleep, perhaps--like the creatures that hide themselves in the
ground and lie torpid all the winter--but with one breath of the past
they flame into life again.'

'I am not going to make any such foolish trial of your lover's
faith, Milly,' said Mr. Darrell. 'Whether your fortune is or is not