CHAPTER XLVI.
EXPLANATIONS.
At eleven o'clock on the following day, Lord Ellingham, who had passed a sleepless and wretched night, called at the house of Lady Hatfield, and was immediately conducted to the drawing-room, where Georgiana was alone in readiness to receive him.
She was dressed in a morning garb, and, though very—very pale, looked surpassingly lovely.
"My dear friend," she said, extending her hand, which, as he offered to press it with rapture to his lips, she gently but still resolutely withdrew,—"my dear friend—for such henceforth must I call you——"
"Georgiana!" he exclaimed, starting back: "what means this coolness?"
"Be seated, Arthur—and listen to me attentively," she said in a plaintive and sweetly touching tone. "I am not very well—my nerves are not strong to-day—and you must not manifest any impatience towards me. Indeed, I ought to have postponed this interview: but I considered it to be my duty—a paramount duty owing alike to yourself and to me—to enter into as early an explanation as possible."
"This preface forebodes nothing favourable to my happiness," murmured the Earl, as he sank into a seat to which Georgiana pointed—but which was not by her side!
"Arthur," she continued, with difficulty maintaining sufficient control over her emotions to enable her to speak calmly and collectedly, "you know not how much I love you—how dearly I am devoted to you. For your sake, and to bear the name of your wife, I could consent to become a mendicant—a wanderer on the face of the earth,—renounce fortune—rank—society—all, in fine, that we women are generally deemed to hold so dear,—yes, all this could I do for your sake, so that you were my companion! Then, conceive how hard it is for me—oh! how very hard, my well-beloved Arthur, to be compelled to say that henceforth we must know each other only as friends!"
"Merciful heavens!" ejaculated the Earl, uncertain whether the imagined capriciousness of his Georgiana was about to assert its tantalizing influence again, or whether any thing of a more serious nature, and connected with the incidents of the preceding evening, was about to present an insuperable bar to his happiness.
"Yes—Arthur," continued Georgiana, in an impressive tone, "henceforth we must be but as brother and sister to each other. And as a dear, fond, affectionate sister will I ever be to you; for your generosity would have made me your wife in spite of——But you cannot wish me to refer to that! And yet it is that one sad episode in my life which now asserts an inexorable influence over the conduct which we must both pursue. It is that event, which you—in the noble candour, in the warm liberality of your admirable disposition——"