"One moment," Cundall said quietly. "I did not know then that she was your future wife. If you will remember, I had only returned to London on that day."
"And you did not know of our engagement?"
"I knew nothing. Let me proceed. In proposing to her and in gaining her love--for she told me that she had consented to be your wife--you have deprived me of the only thing in this world I prize, the only thing I wanted. I came back to England with one fixed idea, the idea that she loved me, and that, when I asked her, she would accept me for her husband."
He paused a moment, and Lord Penlyn said:
"While I cannot regret the cause of your disappointment, seeing what happiness it brings to me, I am still very sorry to see you suffering so."
Cundall took no notice of this remark, though his soft, dark eyes were fixed upon the younger man as he uttered it. Then he continued:
"In ordinary cases when two men love the same woman--for I love her still, Heaven help me and shall always love her; it is my love for her that impels me to say what I am now about to--when two men love the same woman, and one of them gets the acknowledgment of her love, the other stands aside and silently submits to his fate."
Lord Penlyn had been watching him fixedly as the words fell from his lips, and had noticed the calmness, which seemed like the calmness of despair, that accompanied those words. But there was not, however, the calm that accompanies resignation in them, for they implied that, in this case, he did not intend to follow the usual rule.
"You are right in your idea, Mr. Cundall," he answered. "Surely it is not your intention to struggle against what is always accepted as the case?"
"It is not, for since she loves you I must never look upon her face again. But--there is something else?" He paused again for a moment and drew a deep breath, and then he proceeded: