“It is an unkind fortune that has made us meet again,” said she, in a voice of deep melancholy.
“I have never known fortune in any other mood,” said he, fiercely. “When clouds show me the edge of their silver linings, I only prepare myself for storm and hurricane.”
“I know you have endured much,” said she, in a voice of deeper sadness.
“You know but little of what I have endured,” rejoined he, sternly. “You saw me taunted, indeed, with my humble calling, insulted for my low birth, expelled ignominiously from a house where my presence had been sought for; and yet all these, grievous enough, are little to other evils I have had to bear.”
“By what unhappy accident, what mischance, have you made her your enemy, Sebastian? She would not even suffer me to speak to you. She went so far as to tell me that there was a reason for the dislike,—one which, if she could reveal, I would never question.”
“How can I tell?” cried he, angrily. “I was born, I suppose, under an evil star; for nothing prospers with me.”
“But can you even guess her reasons?” said she, eagerly.
“No, except it be the presumption of one in my condition daring to aspire to one in yours; and that, as the world goes, would be reason enough. It is probable, too, that I did not state these pretensions of mine over delicately. I told her, with a frankness that was not quite acceptable, I was one who could not speak of birth or blood. She did not like the coarse word I applied to myself, and I will not repeat it; and she ventured to suggest that, had there not appeared some ambiguity in her own position, I could never have so far forgotten mine as to advance such pretensions—”
“Well, and then?” cried the girl, eagerly.
“Well, and then,” said he, deliberately, “I told her I had heard rumors of the kind she alluded to, but to me they carried no significance; that it was for you I cared. The accidents of life around you had no influence on my choice; you might be all that the greatest wealth and highest blood could make you, or as poor and ignoble as myself, without any change in my affections. 'These,' said she, 'are the insulting promptings of that English breeding which you say has mixed with your blood, and if for no other cause would make me distrust you.'