She did look up, but she speedily looked down again. Her master’s eye was insupportable; it burned absolutely with infernal fire! ‘What is he going to say?’ murmured Miss Laury to herself. She trembled.
‘I say, love,’ pursued the individual, drawing her a little closer to him, ‘I will give you as a reward a husband. Don’t start, now! And that husband shall be a nobleman; and that nobleman is called Lord Hartford! Now, stand up and let me look at you.’
He opened his arms and Miss Laury sprang erect like a loosened bow.
‘Your Grace is anticipated,’ she said. ‘That offer has been made me before. Lord Hartford did it himself three days ago.’
‘And what did you say? Speak the truth now: subterfuge won’t avail you.’
‘What did I say? I don’t know; it little signifies; you have rewarded me, my lord, but I cannot bear this: I feel sick.’
With a deep, short sob, she turned white, and fell close by the duke, her head against his foot.
This was the first time in her life that Mina Laury had fainted, but strong health availed nothing against the deadly struggle which convulsed every feeling in her nature when she heard her master’s announcement. She believed him to be perfectly sincere. She thought he was tired of her and she could not endure it.
I suppose Zamorna’s first feeling when she fell was horror; and his next I am tolerably certain was intense gratification. People say I am not in earnest when I abuse him, or else I would here insert half a page of deserved vituperation—deserved and heartfelt as it is, I will merely relate his conduct without note or comment.
He took a wax taper from the table and held it over Miss Laury. Here could be no dissimulation. She was white as marble and still as stone. In truth then she did intensely love him, with a devotion that left no room in her thoughts for one shadow of an alien image. Do not think, reader, that Zamorna meant to be so generous as to bestow Miss Laury on Lord Hartford. No; he was but testing the attachment which a thousand proofs daily given ought long ago to have convinced him was undying.