“Enough. I will endeavour to explain as quickly as the circumstances of the case will admit.”
“Thank you,” returned the earl, with an air of condescending hauteur.
“Milor, I will try and be calm and unimpassioned, although my heart seems to be almost ready to burst,” exclaimed Chanet. “You will not perhaps be surprised at this when I tell you I love Mademoiselle Trieste. Oh, how fondly, how sincerely, no one knows save myself.”
“Surely you have not drawn me hither for no other purpose than to make this declaration. I have been given to understand that you love her. What of that?”
“What of it!—are you mad?”
“Certainly not. You were engaged to her—were you not?”
“Yes, I was to have married her in four weeks from this time.”
“That I also understood.”
“You did—from whom?”
“From madame, her mother.”