Edmund had, by the time Ellen was seated at her work, thrown himself in a meditating attitude on a sofa, and was apparently lost in a reverie; yet his eyes were frequently fixed on her, and his countenance seemed to soften as he gazed upon her. She soon saw the little party ride into the park, and then feeling herself secure from interruption, she considered how best to begin her intended conversation:—her heart fluttered, and her fingers entangled her work so completely, that it was impossible to proceed with it. Painful, indeed, was her situation; for to converse on topics so deeply interesting with a young man so very lately an entire stranger was indeed a severe task for the gentle, the timid Ellen. Rousing her spirits, however, for she felt that time fled swiftly, she with a tremulous voice said,
"My Lord, I fear you will think I take too great a liberty with one so lately a stranger, if I venture to enter on a subject of the most delicate nature, indeed; but one to me so deeply interesting, I cannot consent to let this opportunity pass, since it may be the last I shall ever have of speaking to your Lordship without witnesses."
From the moment she began to speak, De Montfort started from his reverie, and fixed on her an earnest attention, which had, however, so much softness in it, as emboldened her to proceed in a voice somewhat firmer and more assured.
"You may believe, my Lord," she said, "that Lord St. Aubyn has not withheld from me the real cause of the painful scene I last night witnessed, and a decree of agitation in you, not to be accounted for, but by a recital which out of tenderness he till this morning never ventured to make to me."
"Has he then," said Edmund (in that low, solemn, impressive tone which so deeply interested his hearers) "has he then ventured to reveal to you that horrid event, that deed of blood, the guilt of which he has never been able to throw from him?"
"He has, my Lord, explained to me the meaning of many painful hints; of much uneasiness which I have perceived in him from the first of our acquaintance: but ah! generous, though misled, Lord de Montfort, can you really believe him guilty? Can you doubt the innocence of a man whose life of virtue, whose tender affectionate nature, surely point him out as of all men the least likely to have committed an action so horrid! Surely he cannot have fully and clearly explained to you all the circumstances which preceded this sad event. May I, without too much wounding your feelings, venture to recapitulate what he has told me. Surely a story so clear, so consistent, must at once exonerate him from having had any part in that guilty, that horrid deed."
He bowed assent, and Ellen as succinctly, but as clearly as possible, brought into one point of view, all the circumstances which were favourable to St. Aubyn, yet veiling with the most touching delicacy and consideration those which bore hardest on the fame of Rosolia; affecting to believe that the wretch De Sylva (whom she asserted St. Aubyn and Mrs. Bayfield had certainly seen at her window the night before) had come without her knowledge, and that the same man, meeting her in the lonely hermitage, had committed the shocking deed for the sake of the valuables she wore.
It seemed as if Edmund had chiefly resisted the evidences in St. Aubyn's favour, lest by yielding to them, he must have pronounced his sister guilty: whether this being now less pressed upon him, or that Ellen herself, fully convinced of St. Aubyn's innocence, and perhaps less impassioned than he had been when stating the same story, had placed circumstances more clearly before him, he evidently gave greater credence to the tale than he had ever before done. Her sweetness of voice and manner, and the graceful tenderness with which she spoke of St. Aubyn's virtues; or his honourable and disinterested conduct to her, both before and since their marriage, and of the perfect love which bound them to each other, and wrapt her life in his; tears of tenderness and blushes of indignation marked the varying sensations which filled her bosom at the bare idea of his being suspected of such a crime, and animated her beauty with new graces, appeared to impress him deeply with sentiments of admiration and esteem. When she paused, he sighed and said:—
"Is it in nature to resist such a pleader, or to believe the man so loved by one so pure and spotless, can be himself capable of the blackest crimes? No, Lady St. Aubyn, were your natures so dissimilar it would be impossible that you could so love, so confide in him."
At that instant a soft plaintive voice was heard at the opening door, the voice of an infant. Edmund started, for he had forgotten Lady St. Aubyn had recently become a mother, and a painful recollection pressed on his heart of the infant so dearly loved, so deeply lamented, the child of his idolized Rosolia!