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 "I have already asked you to forgive me for that. You said there was nothing to forgive."

"I didn't dream that you were in love with me."

"What difference can that make?"

"All the difference! All the difference in life!"

"Sit down! You bewilder me," said the Duke. "Explain yourself!" he commanded.

"Isn't that rather much for a man to ask of a woman?"

"I don't know. I have no experience of women. In the abstract, it seems to me that every man has a right to some explanation from the woman who has ruined his life."

"You are frightfully sorry for yourself," said Zuleika, with a bitter laugh. "Of course it doesn't occur to you that I am at all to be pitied. No! you are blind with selfishness. You love me—I don't love you: that is all you can realise. Probably you think you are the first man who has ever fallen on such a plight."

Said the Duke, bowing over a deprecatory hand, "If there were to pass my window one tithe of them whose hearts have been lost to Miss Dobson, I should win no solace from that interminable parade."

Zuleika blushed. "Yet," she said more gently, "be sure they would all be not a little envious of you! Not one of them ever touched the surface of my heart. You stirred my heart to its very depths. Yes, you made me love you madly. The