“I don't understand you.”
“I will be plain enough. I have seen for many a day back what has been going on. I perceived the very commencement of the mischief, when probably neither she nor you dreamed of it; and, resigning all the esteem that years had cemented between us, I spoke to her. Ay, Roland, I told her what would happen. I said that qualities like yours could not be brought every day into contrast with those of poor Kilgoff without most unhappy comparisons. I explained to her, that if she did form an attachment to you, it could not be one of those passing flirtations that an easy code of fashion admits and sanctions; that you were a fellow whose generous nature could never descend to such heartless levity, and that there was no sacrifice of position and prospect you would hesitate to make for a woman that loved you; and I asked her flatly, would she bring such ruin upon you? The greater fool myself; I ought to have known better. She not only refused to listen to me, but actually resented my at-tempted kindness by actual injury. I don't want to speak for myself here, so I 'll hasten on. It was all but a cut between us, for months before we met here. You may remember, in Dublin, we rarely even spoke to each other; we, who once had been like brother and sister!
“Well, before she was a week here, I saw that the danger I had dreaded so long was hourly becoming more imminent. You, very possibly, had not a serious thought upon the matter, but she had actually fallen in love! I suppose you must have played hero, at that shipwreck, in some very chivalrous fashion; however it was, my Lady had lost her heart, precisely at the same time that his Lordship had lost his head,—leaving you, I conjecture, in a very awkward dilemma. Seeing there was no time to lose, and resolving to sacrifice myself to save her, I made one more effort. I'll not weary you with a narrative of my eloquence, nor repeat any of the ten-thousand-and-one reasons I gave for her shunning your society, and, if need were, leaving your house. The whole ended as I ought to have foreseen it would,—in an open breach between us; she candidly avowing that she would be my deadly enemy through life, and even procure a personal rupture between you and me, if pushed to it, by my 'impertinent importunity,' so she called it. I own to you I was completely dumfounded by this. I knew that she had courage for anything, and that, if she did care for a man, there would be a recklessness in the course she would follow that would defy guidance or direction, and so I abstained from any further interference; and, as you may have remarked yourself, I actually estranged myself from you.”
“I did remark that,” said Cashel, gravely.
“Well, to-night, when by mere accident Kilgoff and I had sauntered into the gallery and came upon you in the boudoir, I own frankly I was not sorry for it; unpleasant as such scenes are, they are better—a hundred thousand times better—than the sad consequences they anticipate; and even should anything take place personally, I 'd rather see you stand Kilgoff's fire at 'twelve paces,' than be exposed to the flash of my Lady's eye at 'one.'”
“Your friendly zeal,” said Cashel, with a very peculiar emphasis on the words, “would seem to have got the upper hand of your habitually sharp perception; there was nothing to fear in any part of my intimacy with Lady Kilgoff. I have been but too short a time conversant with fashionable life to forget more vulgar habits, and, among them, that which forbids a man to pay his addresses to the wife of another. I need not vindicate her Ladyship; that she has taken a warm, I shame not to say an affectionate, interest in my fortunes, may have been imprudent I know not what your code admits of or rejects, but her kindness demands all my gratitude, and, if need be, the defence that a man of honor should always be ready to offer for the cause of truth.”
“Don't you perceive, Cashel, that all you are saying only proves what I have been asserting,—that, while you are actually ignorant of your danger, the peril is but the greater? I repeat it to you, however intact your heart may be, hers is in your keeping. I know this; nay, I say it advisedly—don't shake your head and look so confident—I repeat it, I know this to be the case.”
“You know it?” said Cashel, as though Linton's words had startled his convictions.
“I know it, and I 'll prove it, but upon one condition—your word of honor as to secrecy.” Cashel nodded, and Linton went on. “Some short time back, some one, under the shelter of the anonymous, wrote her a letter, stating that they had long watched her intimacy with you—grieving over it, and regretting that she should have yielded any portion of her affection to one whose whole life had been a series of deceptions; that your perjuries in Love's Court were undeniable, and that you were actually married—legally and regularly married—to a young Spanish girl.”
“Was this told her?” said Cashel, gasping for breath.