“If your heart draws no distinction, why not indeed?”
“So be it then: for I will be no woman's slave. There's my hand, Julia: let us part friends.”
“Thank you for that, dear Alfred: may you find some one who can love you more—than—I do.”
The words choked her. But he was stronger, because he was in a passion. He reproached her bitterly. “If I had been as weak and inconstant as you are, I might have been out of Drayton House long before I did escape. But I was faithful to my one love. I have some right to sing 'Aileen Aroon,' you have none. You are an angel of beauty and goodness; you will go to Heaven, and I shall go to the devil now for want of you; but then you have no constancy nor true fidelity: so that has parted us, and now nothing is left me but to try and hate you.”
He turned furiously on his heel.
“God bless you, go where you will,” faltered Julia.
He replied with a fierce ejaculation of despair, and dashed away.
Thus temper and misunderstanding triumphed, after so many strange and bitter trials had failed.
But alas! it is often so.