CHAPTER XLI

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“I LOVED YOU BEST.”

Lady Annesley, having worked much evil, had wiped it out. Yet her stepdaughter never saw her after that day in court. A few lies, a scrap of india-rubber, had cost two men’s lives, and a woman’s good name.

Levallion “had been kind,” had died indirectly because he chose to marry her. Ravenel turned from the dock and went away with Tommy and the duchess, knowing that in a way the dead man had been dear to her, neither as lover nor husband, but as a friend whose love had passed knowledge.

And Adrian Gordon let her go; let time pass till Tommy was in the service and Mr. Jacobs fighting with all the dogs in Aldershot. And one day in May could wait no more.

By the lake at Avonmore she was sitting when, at the sound of his step on the gravel, she looked up and saw him.

“Adrian!” she said, forgetting that for this many a day he had been Lord Levallion. But she got no further, for the look in his eyes that were on her face.

“May I come and speak to you?” he asked quite simply, as a child does, but his mouth had the same look as his eyes. “You’ve traveled a long way without me, Nel. Won’t you--come home?”

And she knew what he meant. There was only one home in the world for her, in Adrian Gordon’s arms. Perhaps she had no pride, for without a word she went there.

In the May sun he looked at her, as in one May two years past. There was no change--but there was! He had never dreamed she was so beautiful. But as he would have kissed her she pushed him away.

“It isn’t fair to you!” she cried. “People will say things if you marry me.”

“We won’t hear them,” he returned, and in so much the manner of the dead and gone Levallion that she cried out.

“You never half-knew him, Adrian! He was good to me.”

“My sweetheart,” he said, with a queer understanding of her loyalty to the dead.

“He was a better man than you,” she cried, and her eyes filled with tears. “But, oh, Adrian, I loved you best.”

THE END.

No. 1175 of the NEW EAGLE SERIES is “They Met by Chance,” by Ida Reade Allen. This story contains so much charm and beauty that it will surely intrigue you.

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Transcriber’s Notes:

Originally serialized in _Street & Smith’s New York Weekly_ from Apr. 21, 1900 to Aug. 11, 1900 under the title _The Girl of His Heart; or, Levallion’s Heir_.

Some chapter titles have been changed in this edition from the original serial; for example, chapter VI was originally called “THE TENDER MERCIES OF THE WICKED.” In the original,