All the music on earth seemed embodied in those few words.

“I should die,” she repeated, “just as a flower dies when it is torn from the soil it has taken deep root.”

“Why do you speak of such things?” I asked.  “No one thinks of your going; this is your home.”

“In my happiest hours the fear lies heaviest upon me,” she replied.  “No one has ever spoken of my going, that is true; but I have common sense, and common sense tells me if certain events happen I must go.”

“What events do you mean?” I asked, all unconsciously.

She sighed deeply.

“If you were to be married, Sir Edgar—­Cousin Edgar, I like to say best—­then I must go.”

“I do not see the necessity.”

“Ah! you do not understand; women are all jealous.  I have grown so accustomed to perform a hundred little services for you, they make the pleasure and sunshine of my life.  To be able to do some little thing to help you is the highest earthly joy that I can ever know.  When you are married, Sir Edgar, your wife will take all this happiness from me.”

“I do not see why,” I replied, dryly, inwardly wishing myself safe in Clare’s room.

“Ah! you do not understand—­men never can understand the love of women.  Wives, above all, are so very jealous.  Fancy, if ever I wanted to make your tea, or get anything ready for you, she would be angry, and I should be wretched.”

“In that case you must make tea for Clare instead of me.”

“If I am anywhere near you, I must always attend to you before every one and anything in the wide world,” she said, impulsively.

“You are making very sure that my wife will not like you,” I said.  “What if I have no wife?”

She shook her head gravely.

“You will marry, Sir Edgar.  All the Trevelyans of Crown Anstey marry, as becomes the head of a grand old family.  You will marry, and your wife will be the happiest woman in the world.”

“I may be a modern Bluebeard, Coralie.”

“No; you will not.  Ah, me!  To go away and leave Crown Anstey—­to leave you—­I shall feel like Eve driven forth from Paradise to die.”

My hand lay carelessly on the back of a chair.  She bent down swiftly and laid her burning lips upon it.  I would not tell—­my face flames as I write the word—­but unless you know all, reader, you will not understand my story.

She laid her warm, soft lips upon it!  And though I did not love her—­did not even trust her—­the magnetic touch thrilled every nerve.  I took my hand away.

“Ah, cousin!” she said, looking at me with those dark, dangerous eyes, “you love even your dog Hector better than me.”

She was so near to me that the perfume from her flowers reached me.  It was by a desperate effort I broke the spell.

“This room is insufferably warm,” I said; “I am going into the garden.  You had better see if Clare wants anything, Coralie.”