“Maiden, thou mayst resent and marvel at my words; but when I had fewer years than thou, my father said, ‘There are many carks in life which a little truth could end.’ So would I heed his lesson. William de Hastings has followed thee with an homage that has broken, perchance, many as pure a heart,—nay, nay, fair child, hear me on. Thou hast heard that in youth he wooed Katherine Nevile,—that we loved, and were severed. They who see us now marvel whether we hate or love,—no, not love—that question were an insult to Lord Bonville’s wife!—Ofttimes we seem pitiless to each other,—why? Lord Hastings would have wooed me, an English matron, to forget mine honour and my House’s. He chafes that he moves me not. I behold him debasing a great nature to unworthy triflings with man’s conscience and a knight’s bright faith. But mark me!—the heart of Hastings is everlastingly mine, and mine alone! What seek I in this confidence? To warn thee. Wherefore? Because for months, amidst all the vices of this foul court-air, amidst the flatteries of the softest voice that ever fell upon woman’s ear, amidst, peradventure, the pleadings of thine own young and guileless love, thine innocence is unscathed. And therefore Katherine of Bonville may be the friend of Sibyll Warner.”
However generous might be the true spirit of these words, it was impossible that they should not gall and humiliate the young and flattered beauty to whom they were addressed. They so wholly discarded all belief in the affection of Hastings for Sibyll; they so haughtily arrogated the mastery over his heart; they so plainly implied that his suit to the poor maiden was but a mockery or dishonour, that they made even the praise for virtue an affront to the delicate and chaste ear on which they fell. And, therefore, the reader will not be astonished, though the Lady of Bonville certainly was, when Sibyll, drawing her hand from Katherine’s clasp, stopping short, and calmly folding her arms upon her bosom, said,—
“To what this tends, lady, I know not. The Lord Hastings is free to carry his homage where he will. He has sought me,—not I Lord Hastings. And if to-morrow he offered me his hand, I would reject it, if I were not convinced that the heart—”
“Damsel,” interrupted the Lady Bonville, in amazed contempt, “the hand of Lord Hastings! Look ye indeed so high, or has he so far paltered with your credulous youth as to speak to you, the daughter of the alchemist, of marriage? If so, poor child, beware!
“I knew not,” replied Sibyll, bitterly, “that Sibyll Warner was more below the state of Lord Hastings than Master Hastings was once below the state of Lady Katherine Nevile.”
“Thou art distraught with thy self-conceit,” answered the dame, scornfully; and, losing all the compassion and friendly interest she had before felt, “my rede is spoken,—reject it if thou wilt in pride. Rue thy folly thou wilt in shame!”
She drew her wimple round her face as she said these words, and, gathering up her long robe, swept slowly on.