"Lord Royallieu," she said slowly, as if the familiar name were some tie
between them, some cause of excuse for these, the only love words she
had ever heard without disdain and rejection--"Lord Royallieu, it is
unworthy of you to take this advantage of an interview which I sought,
and sought for your own sake. You pain me, you wound me. I cannot tell
how to answer you. You speak strangely, and without warrant."
He stood mute and motionless before her, his head sunk on his chest.
He knew that she rebuked him justly; he knew that he had broken through
every law he had prescribed himself, and that he had sinned against the
code of chivalry which should have made her sacred from such words while
they were those he could not utter, nor she hear, except in secrecy and
shame. Unless he could stand justified in her sight and in that of all
men, he had no right to seek to wring out tenderness from her regret and
from her pity. Yet all his heart went out to her in one irrepressible
entreaty.
"Forgive me, for pity's sake! After to-night I shall never look upon
your face again."
"I do forgive," she said gently, while her voice grew very sweet. "You
endure too much already for one needless pang to be added by me. All I
wish is that you had never met me, so that this last, worst thing had
not come unto you!"
A long silence fell between them; where she leaned back among her
cushions, her face was turned from him.
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