"You would gladly have married her at the time, though?"
James again shrouded his eyes. These questions were so coldly put—so rudely forced upon him, that he could only answer by an inward shudder of repulsion.
"You are not a man to change in anything," continued the General. "You loved the woman once—I knew it at the time."
"Knew it, and yet married her!" cried James, with bitterness.
"You seemed to be playing a dog in the manger part—this might do for young fellows who were too timid for speech, or too certain for doubt. The lady was young, beautiful, rich, and appeared to give me the preference. You did not speak. I did; that is all."
"I was not selfishly silent, sir. Before my mother's unhappy death, I was dependent entirely on her bounty, and that you controlled. Mabel was an heiress. I was not mercenary, and hesitated to appear so. My mother loved her. She was very young, and your ward. It would have seemed like taking an unfair advantage of her inexperience, had I used my mother's hospitality as a means of reaching her favor. After that came a more painful reason for silence."
"And what was that, sir?" demanded the General, sharply.
"I learned that her fortune had disappeared; that, large as it was, her guardian, unable to control more than the income of his wife's property, had staked this poor orphan's wealth at the gaming-table, and lost it."
General Harrington half rose from his chair, and sat down again, looking at James in pale astonishment.
"To have declared my love under circumstances so disgraceful to my family, would have been to expose you, sir, both to my gentle mother and to the world. The will which gave Mabel her wealth, provided that a full settlement should be made on the day of her marriage. I had not the courage to hurry on an event that would brand my mother's husband with dishonor."