"Why not he, as well as you? He is as much a man. If I could believe in your love after two days, Lord Lovel, could I not trust his after twenty years of friendship?"
"You knew that he was beneath you."
"He was not beneath me. He was above me. We were poor,—while he and his father had money, which we took. He could give, while we received. He was strong while we were weak,—and was strong to comfort us. And then, Lord Lovel, what knew I of rank, living under his father's wing? They told me I was the Lady Anna, and the children scouted me. My mother was a countess. So she swore, and I at least believed her. But if ever rank and title were a profitless burden, they were to her. Do you think that I had learned then to love my rank?"
"You have learned better now."
"I have learned,—but whether better I may doubt. There are lessons which are quickly learned; and there are they who say that such are the devil's lessons. I have not been strong enough not to learn. But I must forget again, Lord Lovel. And you must forget also." He hardly knew how to speak to her now;—whether it would be fit for him even to wish to persuade her to be his, after she had told him that she had given her troth to a tailor. His uneasy thoughts prompted him with ideas which dismayed him. Could he take to his heart one who had been pressed close in so vile a grasp? Could he accept a heart that had once been promised to a tailor's workman? Would not all the world know and say that he had done it solely for the money,—even should he succeed in doing it? And yet to fail in this enterprise,—to abandon all,—to give up so enticing a road to wealth! Then he remembered what he had said,—how he had pledged himself to abandon the lawsuit,—how convinced he had been that this girl was heiress to the Lovel wealth, who now told him that she had engaged herself to marry a tailor.
There was nothing more that either of them could say to the other at the moment, and they went back in silence to the inn.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE JOURNEY HOME.
In absolute silence Lord Lovel and Lady Anna walked back to the inn. He had been dumbfoundered,—nearly so by her first abrupt statement, and then altogether by the arguments with which she had defended herself. She had nothing further to say. She had, indeed, said all, and had marvelled at her own eloquence while she was speaking. Nor was there absent from her a certain pride in that she had done the thing that was right, and had dared to defend herself. She was full of regrets,—almost of remorse; but, nevertheless, she was proud. He knew it all now, and one of her great difficulties had been overcome.