“Then let us hope the lady will apply that sentiment to the cure of her pride. For truly she knows much more of you than she did before I crossed her path.”
“What do you mean?” said Gabriel, aware that Joscelyn was often daringly outspoken and unconventional, and fearing that he might only have angered Hilary the more.
“I told her of the night at Kineton, when, in your delirium the name of Hilary was eternally on your lips.”
“So you have known all this time?”
“To be sure; and now she knows one or two eminently wholesome truths.”
“I fear you but annoyed her yet more. What did she say?”
“Well, she turned whiter than this old prelate’s head, and I could have sworn she was going to soften. But nothing of the sort; she remained as stony as this effigy, and so we parted with freezing politeness and ceremony. Give her up, Gabriel; why let her make your life a misery?”
“You don’t understand her,” said, Gabriel, in a choked voice. “You have not yet really seen her true self. As to giving her up—why, how should I do that? I have loved her since we were children, and we Harfords do not change.”
“So it seems,” said Joscelyn, ruefully. “Well, I’m hanged if anybody should trouble my peace who had treated me with the consummate cruelty she showed you to-day.”
Gabriel, without reply, turned in at the gateway of the Palace, feeling that even his best friend somehow failed to help him, and quite prepared to be refused an interview with the Bishop.