"She is nearly well," replied Lord Sherbrooke, coldly—"out of all danger, at least. It is I that am sick, Wilton—sick at heart."
"I hope not cold at heart, Sherbrooke," replied Wilton, somewhat pained by the tone in which the other spoke. "I should think such a being as I saw with you might well warm you to constancy as well as love. I hope, Sherbrooke, those feelings I beheld excited in you have not, in this instance, evaporated as soon as in others."
Lord Sherbrooke turned and gazed in his friend's face for a moment intently, even sternly, and then replied, "Love her, Wilton? I love her better than anything in earth or in heaven! It is for her sake I am sad; and yet she is so noble, that why should I fear to bear what she will never shrink from."
"Nay, my dear Sherbrooke," replied Wilton. "The very resolution which I see you have taken to shake yourself free of the trammels of your debts ought to give you joy and confidence."
"Debts!" said Lord Sherbrooke—"debts! Do you think that it was debts I had in view when I ordered my horses to be sold, and my carriages to follow them, and kicked my Italian valet down stairs, and dismissed my mistresses, and got rid of half-a-dozen other blood-suckers?—My debts had nothing to do with it. By Heaven, Wilton, if it had been for nothing but that, I would have spent twenty thousand pounds more before the year was over; for when one has a mind to enrage one's father, or go to gaol, or anything of that kind, one had better do it for a large sum at once, in a gentleman- like way. Oh no, I have other things in my head, Wilton, that you know nothing about."
"I will not try to press into your confidence, Sherbrooke," replied Wilton, "though I think in some things I have shown myself deserving of it. But I need hardly tell you, that if I can serve you, I am always most willing to do so, and you need but command me."
"Alas! my dear Wilton," replied Lord Sherbrooke—"this is a matter in which you can do nothing. It is like one man trying to lift Paul's church upon his back, and another coming up and offering to help him. If I did what was right, and according to the best prescribed practice, I should repay your kind wishes and offers by turning round and cutting your throat."
"Nay, nay, my dear Sherbrooke," replied Wilton, "you are in one of your misanthropical fits, and carry it even further than ordinary. The world is bad enough, but not so bad as to present us with many instances of people cutting each other's throats as a reward for offers of service."
"You are very wise, Wilton," replied Lord Sherbrooke, "but nevertheless you will find out that at present I am right and you are wrong. However, let us talk of something else;" and he dashed off at once into a wild gay strain of merriment, as unaccountable as the grave and gloomy tone with which he had entered into the conversation.
This morning's interview formed the type of Lord Sherbrooke's conduct during the whole time of his stay in town. Continual fluctuations, not only in his own spirits, but in his demeanour towards Wilton himself; evidently showed his friend that he was agitated internally by some great grief or terrible anxiety. Indeed, from time to time, his words suffered it to appear, though not, perhaps, in the same manner that the words of other men would have done in similar circumstances. The only thing in which he seemed to take pleasure was in attending the trials of the various conspirators; and when any of them displayed any fear or want of firmness, he found therein a vast source of merriment, and would come home laughing to Wilton, and telling him how the beggarly wretch had showed his pale fright at the block and axe.