‘It is a strange, a wonderful story,’ said Lord Montfort, ‘and you communicated everything to Miss Grandison?’
‘Everything but the name of her rival. To that she would not listen. It was not just, she said, to one so unfortunate and so unhappy.’
‘She seems an admirable person, that Miss Grandison,’ said Lord Montfort.
‘She is indeed as near an angel as anything earthly can be,’ said Glastonbury.
‘Then it is still a secret to the parents?’
‘Thus she would have it,’ said Glastonbury. ‘She clings to them, who love her indeed as a daughter; and she shrank from the desolation that was preparing for them.’
‘Poor girl!’ said Lord Montfort, ‘and poor Armine! By heavens, I pity him from the bottom of my heart.’
‘If you had seen him as I have,’ said Glastonbury, ‘wilder than the wildest Bedlamite! It was an awful sight.’
‘Ah! the heart, the heart,’ said Lord Montfort: ‘it is a delicate organ, Mr. Glastonbury. And think you his father and mother suspect nothing?’
‘I know not what they think,’ said Glastonbury, ‘but they must soon know all.’ And he seemed to shudder at the thought.