"Your language, Sir Morley Ernstein," said Lieberg, "is well nigh insulting, and must not be repeated."
"I have told you, Count Lieberg," replied Morley, "the plain truth, for which truth you pressed me. Having to thank you for some kindness, nothing can be farther from my wish than to insult you; but, at the same time, you must not urge me too far. Your advice I relish not; and though I do not, as you insinuate, pretend to anything like perfect purity of thought, word, or action--God forbid that I should be such a hypocrite!--and though I may yield to temptation, when it comes upon me, as weakly as any man, yet I will never calmly and deliberately lay out a plan for seducing a woman from that faith to which she has sworn at the altar. When I said that I should consider myself a villain if I did so, I had a reference to my own feelings and my own principles, in direct opposition to which I have no right to act. You see the matter in a different light, and I pretend not to criticise or to censure your views or your actions. The temptation may come, and I may fall, as you say; I fear it might be so--I am sure it might be so; but I will never seek the temptation myself."
"You will repent;" replied Lieberg, still frowning on him--"you will repent your language towards me this night.--I am better as a friend than an enemy."
"You drive me, sir, to say harsh things," answered Morley sternly; "but I fear you less as the latter than the former. One word more, Count Lieberg, before you go," he added, as Lieberg turned towards the door. "I have this morning received a letter from a lady, whom I find you have seen oftener than I believed. I do not understand all that she means; but Miss Barham places the name of Count Lieberg so close to the term--'a man who persecutes me,' that, as we part apparently not soon to meet again, it may be as well to say, I look upon that lady as a sister, will protect her as such, and will treat any man who insults or injures her, as I would one who wronged my nearest relation."
Lieberg's lip curled with a sarcastic smile. "Your knight-errantry, Sir Morley," he said, "may lead you into scrapes; but you are a very wise and prudent young man, and doubtless will extricate yourself delicately from all embarrassments. As you have added a word to me, however, I must add one to you. It shall be a short one, for the evening sky is beginning to turn grey, and I must seek a more hospitable roof. It is this--do not cross my path, or I will blast you like a withered leaf; and so, good night!"
With his usual calm, firm step, Lieberg descended the stairs, and quitted the villa. Morley's eyes flashed; but old Adam Gray hastened to interpose telling his master all that he had seen and heard during that afternoon.
"This is very strange!" said Morley, musing. "Send the man, Giacchino, to me--or, stay, ask him yourself, if the courier mentioned was that of Count Lieberg. He may be meditating some harm to that poor girl, and yet I must not--dare not go to Sorrento myself. Go, good Adam, and enquire. It is all very strange!--That Juliet should come to Sorrento, when she knows that I am so near!--It seems as if it were my fate to be doomed to do wrong, even when I labour to avoid it.--I will not go!"
Old Adam Gray came back in a moment, saying that Giacchino was quite sure that the name of Count Lieberg was the one he had heard; and Morley seriously alarmed instantly took means to warn Helen of the vague but not unfounded apprehensions which he entertained. He sent the peasant who farmed the estate attached to the villa, and two of his own servants, over to Sorrento, with orders to stay with the young lady, and give her protection during the night; and after explaining his motives for this step, in a short note, he added--"I would have come myself at once, but that you tell me Juliet and her party from Sicily are about to join you this day at Sorrento. Dear Helen, I must never see her more, for I dare not trust myself. I am tempted in a way that you cannot divine; and I must fly from that temptation, lest even greater misfortunes fall upon her and me. Keep the men I send, with you till Juliet comes, after that, her servants, added to your own, will, I trust, ensure your safety."
"Now dispatch the people quickly, good Adam," said Morley, giving him the note; "but, above all things, bid them keep a horse saddled, and let me know if anything important occurs at Sorrento. They can be over here in less than ten minutes. Have all our men prepared for whatever may occur; and see if there be not some more horses to be procured in the neighbourhood. If so let them be brought in. We might have to ride over in haste."