"Dear Lord Herbert, do not be so unhappy," she said softly. "You really have no right to be, you know."
"No right?" He looked up suddenly. "If you knew, you would not say that."
"I should always say it. As long as you have friends--friends who love you, and would do anything for you, why should you make yourself so miserable?"
"I want more than a friend--even than friendship."
Again she gazed into his eyes and paused. Her face was very white--whiter than his. Then she spoke.
"Are you so sure you have not got that love?" she asked. Her own voice trembled now.
Arden started and a look of something almost like fear came into his face. He could hardly speak.
"Love?" he repeated, and he felt he could say nothing more.
She thought there was a touch of the divine in poor Arden's expression as he heard the words. Then his face grew pale, the light faded from his eyes, and his head sank on his breast. Laura did not at first realise what had happened. She felt so strongly herself, that nothing in his manner would have surprised her. She heard nothing of the hum of the voices in the room, or if she did, she heard the harmony of a happy hymn, and the great branches of candles were the tapers upon an altar in some sacred place.
Still Arden did not move. Laura bent down and looked at his face.
"Lord Herbert!" She called him softly. "Herbert, what is the matter?"
No answer came. She looked round wildly for help. At that moment the dance was just over and Ghisleri passed near her with Donna Adele on his arm. Laura rose and overtook him swiftly, touching his arm in her excitement.
"Lord Herbert has fainted--for heaven's sake, help him!" she cried, in a low voice.
"Excuse me," he said hastily to Donna Adele, and left her standing in the middle of the room. He bent down and felt Arden's forehead and hands.
"Yes, he has fainted," he said to Laura. "Show me the way to a quiet place."
Thereupon he took his unconscious friend in his arms and followed Laura quickly through the surging crowd that already filled the room, escaping in haste from the heat as soon as the dance was over in the ball-room beyond.
For a few seconds one of those total silences fell upon the party which always follow an accident. Then, as Ghisleri disappeared with his burden, every one began to talk at once, speculating upon the nature of Lord Herbert Arden's indisposition. Heart disease--epilepsy--nervous prostration--most things were suggested.