Could it be right that he who, as a young man, had already done so much, who might possibly have before him so high and great a career, should miss that, because he could not resist a feeling which a little chit of a girl had created in his bosom,--a girl without money, without position, without even beauty; a girl as to whom, were he to marry her, the world would say, "Oh, heaven!--there has Frank Greystock gone and married a little governess out of old Lady Fawn's nursery!" And yet he loved her with all his heart, and to-day he had told her of his love.

What should he do next?
The complicated legal case received neither much ravelling nor unravelling from his brains that night; but before he left his chambers he wrote the following letter:-- Midnight, Saturday, All among my books and papers, 2, Bolt Court, Middle Temple.
DEAR, DEAR LUCY, I told you to-day that you had ever been the Queen who reigned in those palaces which I have built in Spain.
You did not make me much of an answer; but such as it was,--only just one muttered doubtful-sounding word,--it has made me hope that I may be justified in asking you to share with me a home which will not be palatial.

If I am wrong--?
But no;--I will not think I am wrong, or that I can be wrong.

No sound coming from you is really doubtful.
You are truth itself, and the muttered word would have been other than it was, if you had not--! may I say,--had you not already learned to love me?
You will feel, perhaps, that I ought to have said all this to you then, and that a letter in such a matter is but a poor substitute for a spoken assurance of affection.
You shall have the whole truth.

Though I have long loved you, I did not go down to Fawn Court with the purpose of declaring to you my love.