“If you loved another, Lola—?” said he, interrupting, and then waiting for her to finish her speech.
“And if I had,” burst she forth, “am I credulous enough to fancy that your word can reconcile every difference of rank and fortune,—that you can control destiny, and even coerce affection? No, no, Eustace; I have outlived all that!”
“Then were you wiser when you believed it,” said he, gravely. “Now for his name.”
There was a tone of almost commanding influence in which these last few words were uttered, and his dark full eyes were steadily fixed on her as he spoke them.
She hesitated to answer, and seemed to reflect.
“I ask no forced confession, Lola,” said he, proudly, and rising at the same time from his seat “In all the unreserve of our old affection, I told you my secret; yours is with yourself.”
“But can you—” She stopped.
“I can, and I will aid you,” said he, finishing her sentence.
“There is the name, then!” cried she, as, with a passionate gesture, she drew a sealed letter from her bosom, and showed him the superscription.
D'Esmonde almost started; but, recovering himself in an instant, he said,——