"Truly, then, you have never seen it," rejoined the young gentleman, "for it is often heavy enough."
"I grieve to hear it," replied the lady, with a look of interest; and then in a gayer tone she added, with that attraction towards dangerous subjects which is to woman as the light to the moth, "Come, what is it weighs it down? Make me your father confessor. Woman's wit will often find a way to attain that which man's wisdom fails to reach."
"Well then, I will," said William Seymour. "I could not have a fairer confessor, nor one who has more right to assign the penance for my sins. Lady, my heart is heavy, from an hereditary disease, which has caused much mischief and much grief amongst my race already. You may probably have heard of it."
"Nay, never," answered Arabella, with real astonishment. "I always thought the very name of Seymour implied health and strength, and long life.--What is this sad malady?"
"That of loving above our station," replied William Seymour; and instantly her face became deadly pale, her frame trembled, and her eyes sought the ground.
He proceeded, however. "This sad ambition," he said, "cost my grandfather nine years' imprisonment, and well nigh his head; but he, as you well know, little cared or sorrowed for what he had suffered, though grieved deeply for the sweet lady on whom their mutual love had brought so severe a punishment."
"And she,"--replied Arabella, looking up, with the colour mounting in her cheek,--"and she grieved for him, not for herself. The Greys were an unfortunate race, however. How strange is the will of God, that of two so beautiful and excellent, Jane should perish on the scaffold, and Catherine waste her best days in prison! Yet methinks they must have been both happy even in their misfortunes, both suffering for those they loved."
"'Twas a sad trial and test of affection," said William Seymour.
"Yet one that any woman would take who truly loves," replied Arabella.
"Ay, that is the point," he answered, looking down. "Such love may, to her who feels it, compensate for all suffering, and, to him who possesses it, repay the sacrifice of all, even of life itself. But, what must be the fate, lady, of one who loves as deeply as man can love, yet sees the object far above his reach, without one cheering hope to lead him on, one cause to think the passion in his own heart has awakened any return in the being, for whom he could cast away his life, as a gambler does his coin?"