“I must speak that which is in my mind,” she said earnestly. “I know that you are good and true-hearted, you can have done no wrong that you have cause to be ashamed of, why then do you fear to meet these people?”
Lewis started, raised his head, and flinging back his dark hair, exclaimed almost fiercely, “Did you say fear? I fear no living being! There is no man who can accuse me of evil-doing; my name is as spotless as your own pure soul.”
“Then why refuse to meet them?”
“Because I fear my own heart,” was the vehement reply, “because I have sworn never to meet her again till I have learned to look upon her with the indifference her weak fickleness deserves, and that,” he added bitterly, “will not be till grey hairs bring insensibility to woman’s love and such-like gilded toys, or till she has crushed out the last germs of my lingering madness by marrying the heartless scoundrel to whom she is engaged.” He paused, and then continued more calmly, “You ask me why I refuse to meet these people; hear the truth, and then judge for yourself whether I can meet them; nay, judge for me also if you will, for I am half-frenzied by the anguish I have suffered, and am as incapable to decide for myself in this affair as a child, such puppets are we to our loves and hates;” and then in eager, hurried accent he told her of his love for Annie Grant, his struggle for self-conquest, his signal failure, his fearful hope that she returned his affection, the parting, his confession to the General, the strange tidings he had learned in London, and then the cruel paralysing blow of Annie’s engagement, renewed the very day after he had left Broadhurst, believing on no slight grounds that she loved him and him only. All the burning sorrow, pent for two long years within his secret soul, he poured forth before her; and Laura listened with glowing cheeks and tearful eyes, and a growing resolve in her brave, pure heart to set aside all conventionalisms and every hollow form of society, and if Annie should but prove worthy of him, to labour with all the energy of her earnest nature to bring these young, sad, loving hearts together again.
CHAPTER LVI.—LEWIS ATTENDS AN EVENING PARTY, AND NARROWLY ESCAPES BEING “CUT” BY AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.
“Now listen to me, and be good, and sensible, and tractable for once in your life,” exclaimed Laura, when Lewis’s agitation had in some degree subsided. “You appear to have acted with more than sufficient self-will and impetuosity all through this affair, and the result has not proved so satisfactory as to justify you in refusing a friend’s advice and assistance. Excuse my plain speaking,” she continued, with a frank smile which would have thawed the moroseness of the most churlish misanthrope who ever reversed the precepts of Christianity by hating his neighbour, “but I must either say all I think or be wholly silent. Besides, it is no kindness to hide the truth from you.”
“What would you have me do?” returned Lewis sadly. “Believe me, I reproach myself for my past folly more bitterly than you could do were you my worst enemy, instead of the gentle, zealous friend you are.”
“I would not have you at present do anything, more especially anything rash,” returned Laura, “but simply leave the matter in my hands.”