As she put her hand on his shoulder and looked at him with a smile of pride, and of adoration, Stafford’s eyes fell before hers.

“I could do nothing else,” he said.  “But I am sorry you came, Maude.  Didn’t Mr. Falconer tell you?”

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.

Falconer came in and regarded them from under his lowered lids.

“I might have expected to find you here,” he said harshly to Maude.

“Yes; I came to him,” she said, with a little gesture.  “Why should I not?  Why should I care—­”

Falconer shrugged his shoulders, and turned from her to Stafford.