“Suddenly, without the least suspicion on my part, I discovered that she did love somebody else.”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “so did I.”
“What could I do?” said the other, still abstractedly gazing; “for I loved her.”
“You loved her?” cried Arthur Merlin, so suddenly and loud that Thomas Tray looked up from his great red Russia book and turned his head toward the inner office.
“Certainly I loved her,” replied Lawrence Newt, calmly, and with tender sweetness; “and I had a right to, for I loved her mother. Could I have had my way Hope Wayne’s mother would have been my wife.”
Arthur Merlin stole a glance at the face of his companion.
“I was a child and she was a child—a boy and a girl. It was not to be. She married another man and died; but her memory is forever sacred to me, and so is her daughter.”
To this astonishing revelation Arthur Merlin said nothing. His fingers still played idly on the chair, and his eyes, like the eyes of Lawrence, looked out upon the river. Every thing in Lawrence Newt’s conduct was at once explained; and the poor artist was ready to curse his absurd folly in making his friend involuntarily sit for Endymion. Lawrence Newt knew his friend’s thoughts.
“Arthur,” he said, in a low voice, “did I not say that, if Endymion were not dead, it would be impossible not to awake and love her? Do you not see that I was dead to her?”
“But does she know it?” asked the painter.