“Hear me, then!” said Clifford, mastering his embarrassment and speaking in a firm and clear voice; “is that true which I have but just heard,—is it true that I have been spoken of in your presence in terms of insult and affront?”
It was now for Lucy to feel embarrassed; fearful to give pain, and yet anxious that Clifford should know, in order that he might disprove, the slight and the suspicion which the mystery around him drew upon his name, she faltered between the two feelings, and without satisfying the latter, succeeded in realizing the fear of the former.
“Enough!” said Clifford, in a tone of deep mortification, as his quick ear caught and interpreted, yet more humiliatingly than the truth, the meaning of her stammered and confused reply,—“enough! I see that it is true, and that the only human being in the world to whose good opinion I am not indifferent has been a witness of the insulting manner in which others have dared to speak of me!”
“But,” said Lucy, eagerly, “why give the envious or the idle any excuse? Why not suffer your parentage and family to be publicly known? Why are you here”—and her voice sank into a lower key—“this very day, unasked, and therefore subject to the cavils of all who think the poor distinction of an invitation an honour? Forgive me, Mr. Clifford; perhaps I offend. I hurt you by speaking thus frankly; but your good name rests with yourself, and your friends cannot but feel angry that you should trifle with it.”
“Madam,” said Clifford; and Lucy's eyes, now growing accustomed to the darkness, perceived a bitter smile upon his lips, “my name, good or ill, is an object of little care to me. I have read of philosophers who pride themselves in placing no value in the opinions of the world. Rank me among that sect. But I am—I own I am—anxious that you alone, of all the world, should not despise me; and now that I feel you do, that you must, everything worth living or hoping for is past!”
“Despise you!” said Lucy, and her eyes filled with tears; “indeed you wrong me and yourself. But listen to me, Mr. Clifford. I have seen, it is true, but little of the world, yet I have seen enough to make me wish I could have lived in retirement forever. The rarest quality among either sex, though it is the simplest, seems to me good-nature; and the only occupation of what are termed 'fashionable people' appears to be speaking ill of one another. Nothing gives such a scope to scandal as mystery; nothing disarms it like openness. I know, your friends know, Mr. Clifford, that your character can bear inspection; and I believe, for my own part, the same of your family. Why not, then, declare who and what you are?”
“That candour would indeed be my best defender,” said Clifford, in a tone which ran displeasingly through Lucy's ear; “but in truth, madam, I repeat, I care not one drop of this worthless blood what men say of me: that time has passed, and forever; perhaps it never keenly existed for me,—no matter. I came hither, Miss Brandon, not wasting a thought on these sickening fooleries, or on the hoary idler by whom they are given. I came hither only once more to see you, to hear you speak, to watch you move, to tell you”—and the speaker's voice trembled, so as to be scarcely audible—“to tell you, if any reason for the disclosure offered itself, that I have had the boldness, the crime, to love—to love—O God! to adore you; and then to leave you forever!”
Pale, trembling, scarcely preserved from falling by the tree against which she leaned, Lucy listened to this abrupt avowal. “Dare I touch this hand?” continued Clifford, as he knelt and took it timidly and reverently. “You know not, you cannot dream, how unworthy is he who thus presumes; yet not all unworthy, while he is sensible of so deep, so holy a feeling as that which he bears to you. God bless you, Miss Brandon!—Lucy, God bless you! And if hereafter you hear me subjected to still blacker suspicion or severer scrutiny than that which I now sustain; if even your charity and goodness can find no defence for me; if the suspicion become certainty, and the scrutiny end in condemnation,—believe at least that circumstances have carried me beyond my nature, and that under fairer auspices I might have been other than I am!”
Lucy's tear dropped upon Clifford's hand as he spoke; and while his heart melted within him as he felt it and knew his own desperate and unredeemed condition, he added,—
“Every one courts you,—the proud, the rich, the young, the high-born,—all are at your feet! You will select one of that number for your husband; may he watch over you as I would have done!—love you as I do he cannot! Yes, I repeat it,” continued Clifford, vehemently,—“he cannot! None amidst the gay, happy, silken crowd of your equals and followers can feel for you that single and overruling passion which makes you to me what all combined—country, power, wealth, reputation, an honest name, peace, common safety, the quiet of the common air, alike the least blessing and the greatest-are to all others! Once more, may God in heaven watch over you and preserve you! I tear myself, on leaving you, from all that cheers or blesses or raises or might have saved me! Farewell!”