"And you—"
"Fitzroy, enough; I will not be interrogated. If you doubt me, I am unworthy your love; you to suspect my truth, unworthy mine."
"Forgive me, Lady Catharine! Yet you met?"
"For a moment. I told him I was betrothed to thee, and he left me, as I believe, to pursue thee."
"This accounts for his vindictiveness. Pardon me if I have wronged thee. You do not hear."
"I was thinking of Lester," she said, with unsuspecting frankness.
He gazed upon her absent countenance a few seconds, struck his temples with vehemence, and groaned with anguish. Suddenly he turned towards her and said, with the sternness of grief mingled with reluctant jealousy,
"Lady Catharine of Bellamont, answer me in pity, by the love I bear you, by the troth you have plighted me! With all his insatiate avarice and thirst for blood, his moral baseness and his numerous crimes, does there not linger in the embers of your earlier passion one single spark a proper wind may kindle into flame?"
"There is deeper meaning beneath your words than floats upon the surface," she replied, with dignity; "my woman's pride should rise in my defence, and meet with scorn the foul suspicion that lurks beneath them! But I will excuse you. I will think you soured by the recent loss of your brig, and so forgive you."
"This is no answer, lady! This Lester or Kyd, I well know, loves you! Thinking me dead, he soon will press his suit. By soft words, vows, and deep protestations of innocence and promises of reform, will he seek to reinstate himself in your affections—if perchance they are forfeited! He is rich, noble, and smooth-tongued. I am, as now you see me, a shipwrecked mariner, with only my commission and my sword! Nay, you have even cast the loss of my vessel in my teeth!"