Violante came on, gathering courage, and stood at the hearth by his side.
CHAPTER XXIX.
"LORD L'ESTRANGE, noble friend!"
"You!—and here—Violante? Is it I whom you seek? For what? Good heavens! what has happened? Why are you so pale; why tremble?"
"Have you forgiven Helen?" asked Violante, beginning with evasive question, and her cheek was pale no more. "Helen, the poor child! I have nothing in her to forgive, much to thank her for. She has been frank and honest."
"And Leonard—whom I remember in my childhood—you have forgiven him?"
"Fair mediator," said Harley, smiling, though coldly, "happy is the man who deceives another; all plead for him. And if the man deceived cannot forgive, no one will sympathize or excuse."
"But Leonard did not deceive you?"
"Yes, from the first. It is a long tale, and not to be told to you; but
I cannot forgive him."
"Adieu! my Lord. Helen must, then, still be very dear to you!" Violante turned away. Her emotion was so artless, her very anger so charming, that the love, against which, in the prevalence of his later and darker passions, he had so sternly struggled, rushed back upon Harley's breast; but it came only in storm.