"She never loved me--never! never! you are right, Phil."
"And yet I believe she did."
"Did!" said I, angrily; "what do you mean now, Caradoc? I am in no mood to study paradoxes."
"I mean that she loved you to a certain extent; but not well enough to sacrifice herself and her--"
"Don't say position--hang it!"
"No--no."
"What then?" I asked, impatiently.
"Her little luxuries, and all that she must have lost by the tenor of her father's will and her mother's bad will, or that she should have omitted to gain, had she married you, a simple captain of the 23rd Foot, instead of this old Potter--this Earl of Aberconway."
"A simple captain, indeed!"
"Pshaw, Harry, be a man, and think no more about the affair. It is as a tale that is told, a song that is sung, a bottle of tolerable wine that has become a marine."