How the field of combat lay
By the tomb’s self; how he sprang from ambuscade—
Captured Death, caught him in that pair of hands.
Browning.
“John,” said Sydney, as they were taking their last walk together as engaged people on the banks of their Avon, “There’s something I think I ought to tell you.”
“Well, my dearest.”
“Don’t they say that there ought not to be any shadow of concealment of the least little liking for any one else, when one is going to be married,” quoth Sydney, not over lucidly.
“I’m sure I can safely acquit myself of any such shadow,” said John, laughing. “I never had the least little liking for anybody but Mother Carey, and that wasn’t a least little one at all!”
“Well, John, I’m very much ashamed of it, because he didn’t care for me, as it turned out; but if he had, as I once thought, I should have liked him,” said Sydney, looking down, and speaking with great confusion out of the depths of her conscience, stirred up by much ‘Advice to Brides,’ and Sunday novels, all turning on the lady’s error in hiding her first love; and then perhaps because the effect on John was less startling than she had expected, she added with another effort, “It was Lucas Brownlow.”
“Jock!” cried John. “The dear fellow!”
“Yes—I did think it, when he was in the Guards, and always about with Cecil. It was very silly of me, for he did not care one fraction.”
“Why do you think so?” said John hoarsely.
“Well, I know better now, but when he made up his mind to leave the army, I fancied it was no better than being a recreant knight, and I begged and prayed him to go out with Sir Philip Cameron, and as near as I dared told him it was for my sake. But he went on all the same, and then I was quite sure he did not care, and saw what a goose I had made of myself. Oh! Johnny, it has been very hard to tell you, but I thought I ought, and I hope you’ll never think of it more, for Lucas just despised my foolish forwardness, and you know you have every bit of my heart and soul. What is the matter, John? Oh! have I done harm, when I meant to do right?”