They made him so welcome it was like coming home. Mrs. Severn pitied him because he looked ill. She placed him in the sunniest corner of the room; she made him stay for a récherché little dinner. Clarice talked to him and sang to him. She poured out the treasures of her intellect like water at his feet. Another man would have yielded almost helplessly to the charm, but his haggard face never changed, no smile came to his stern, gray lips.
He had vowed to himself before he entered the house that nothing could induce him to mention Lady Hermione’s name, yet he longed to hear it from other lips. Clarice told him of the Gordons and the Thringstons, but the name he longed to hear was not mentioned. He perceived that Clarice purposely avoided it, and wondered why. Was Lady Hermione ill? Had anything happened to her?
At last he could endure the suspense no longer, and he said, “You say nothing of the Lorristons. Are they well?”
Her beautiful face flushed, and her eyes rested on him for one-half minute with an expression he could not understand.
“I am sorry you have asked me,” she replied in a low voice. “I can only tell you what will pain you.”
“Tell me,” he said.
“I cannot answer for the truth of such a rumor. I do not see as much of her as I used to do, but I am told there is every prospect of a marriage between her and—and Kenelm Eyrle.”
Despite his self-control, Sir Ronald’s face grew deadly pale. He was perfectly silent for some minutes, not daring to trust himself to speak. Then he laughed, little guessing how hollow and bitter was the sound of that laugh. Never would he lay bare this wound of his heart. Men should never laugh at his madness, or women smile at the weakness of his love. None should ever know this fair woman’s hand had struck him.
“Did you think that would distress me?” he said. “Why, Miss Severn, you told me almost as much two years ago.”
“I did not like to pain you,” she said, gently.