"No, he won't!" said Miles triumphantly, "No, he won't! He will tell you, on the contrary, that you are quite wrong; he will tell you that he knows I love you, and have dared to hope, to believe that you love me. He will tell you that I have told him what is my dearest hope, and that he shares it; and more, Grace, more than that, he will tell you that he came here with me to-day on purpose that I might learn my fate, and be no longer in suspense; and that he is on duty at this moment, keeping the old ladies in talk, just to give me this precious opportunity. Now, where are all your arguments? where are my wise friends? where is this terrible world to whom we are to be sacrificed? You have nothing more to say, Grace; your 'never, never, never!' cannot hurt me any more."
For one brief moment he triumphed. For one moment his arm was around her, and his lips, were pressed to hers. But the next she had started from his embrace, and stood pale and breathless before him.
"Is this really true?" she said; "does Lord Sandilands approve?" She asked him only to gain a moment's time for thought; she was terribly disconcerted by this complication, it increased her difficulties immensely. But Miles saw in the question only a symptom of yielding, only a proof of his victory.
"Yes; yes," he said eagerly, "it is true; it is indeed! He is the only real friend I have in the world; the only man whose opinion I care for, and he is on my side. Now, Grace, you must yield; you cannot refuse me."
She stood for a moment motionless and silent. Then her nerves; generally so strong, so completely under control, gave way. The violence of the struggle, the intensity of the pain she was suffering, that overwhelming remembrance of the past, the agonising sense of what might have been, but was now quite impossible, the feebleness of the only weapon which she could venture to use in this battle in which her own heart was her adversary,--all these overcame her, and she sunk upon the bench in a helpless agony of tears.
Terrified by her distress; Miles Challoner knelt before her, and implored her to explain the cause of this sudden grief. But all his prayers were vain. She wept convulsively for many minutes and was literally unable to speak. When at last she conquered the passion of tears, she felt and looked so very ill that he became alarmed on a fresh score.
"You are ill," he said; "shall I go for Mrs. Bloxam? Shall I take you to the house?"
She made a sign with her hand that he should not speak, then leaned her head against the bench, and closed her eyes. He stood by, awkward and silent, watching her. After a little while she sat up, and said faintly:
"Will you leave me? Go away from me for the present--I am ill; but it is only from agitation. Let me be alone for a while; you shall see me again when I am able."
"Of course I will leave you, if you wish it," said Miles, with all the timidity and embarrassment of a man in the presence of feminine weakness and suffering; "but I am afraid you are not fit to be left alone."