“Moray, I am so little and weak,” she whispered, “but I have my pride. You must not let a disappointment eat out all the pleasure of your life.”
“Hush!” he said softly.
“I will speak,” she cried. “Moray, my own brother, you must not break your great true heart because a handsome woman has played with you for a time, and then thrown you aside for a worthless, foolish man.”
He fixed his eyes upon her now, and said sadly, as he smiled in her face,—
“Wrong, little sister, wrong. I was mad, and forgot myself. She was promised to another before we had met.”
“Yes, Moray, dear, but—”
“Silence! No more,” he said sternly. “Never refer to this again.”
“Oh, but, Moray, darling, let me—”
“Hush!” he said, laying his finger tenderly, half-playfully, upon her lip, and then removing it to kiss her affectionately. “All that is dead and gone, Lucy. We must not dig up the dry bones of our old sorrows to revive them once again. I have long been promised to a mistress whom I forsook for a time—to whom I was unfaithful. She has forgiven me, dear, and taken me back to her arms. Urania is my heart’s love,” he continued, smiling, “and I am going to be a faithful spouse. There, there, little sister, go now, and I will make your peace with our mother, or rather ask her to make her peace with you.”
He led her to the door and dismissed her with another kiss, after which he stood watching her ascend the stairs, and saw her stop on the landing to kiss her hand to him. Then he sought his mother, with whom he had a serious interview, leaving her at the end of an hour to return to his chair in the observatory, when he took up a pen, as if to write, but only let it fall; and, forgetful of everything but his own sorrow, sat there dreaming, old-looking and strange till the sun went down.