"Because you were never meant for one. Because it is not the right life for you, for whom life is but just opening. Because——"
Beatrice interrupted him. "Life opening! Your pardon, Sir Lawrence. Life has closed for me."
"You think so much now," he answered, gently. "This time next year, will you so think? Not wanted! Would you come where you were? I could tell you of one who wanteth you more than words can tell,—to whom the world will be black gloom if you go forth of it. But let that pass. I meant not to speak—Beattie, old friend, old playmate, sister if I may call you so, leave me plead with you this once, ere you bury your youth and hope where neither hope nor gladness can enter more. I know you too well, Beattie! You would be miserable in the cloister. Why not make some other life happy, and your own joined thereto?"
He listened earnestly for her answer. One more negative, and he would let her alone, to go her own way, though his way would be darkness and loneliness thenceforward. Lawrence's love was very unselfish. If Beatrice had loved some one who was not himself, he would have given her every penny he possessed for her fortune, had he thought that the want of fortune barred her from happiness. But he did not think that she loved any one, and himself least of all. Only he could not bear the thought of the cloister for Blumond's Beattie, and he thought he knew her well enough to be sure that it would be misery in the latter end.
"I will," said Beatrice in a low voice, keeping her face in shadow. "I will, if——"
"If what, dear Beattie?"
"If it may be yours, Lawrence."
HISTORICAL APPENDIX.
MORTIMER OF MARCH.
Roger Mortimer, third Earl of March, eldest and only surviving son of Edmund second Earl and Elizabeth de Badlesmere was born in 1328, and stood eighth on the list of original Knights of the Garter: died at Rouvray, in Burgundy, Feb. 26th, 1360; buried at Wigmore. Married