"For a hermit, no doubt, not for a man. A man should have the city and the Forum. Ah, Bothwell, if you were my husband, there would be no limit to my ambition for you! And you are going to vegetate in a place like this?"
"I am going to work here, and to be useful in my generation, I hope. I shall help to make the soldiers of the future;" and then he told Lady Valeria his plans.
"What a drudgery!" she exclaimed; "what a wearisome monotonous round, from year's end to year's end! I would as soon be a horse in a mill. O Bothwell, the very idea is an absurdity. You a schoolmaster! You!"
She measured him from head to foot with a scornful laugh; trying to humiliate him, to make him ashamed of his modest hopes. But she failed utterly in this endeavour. Bothwell was too happy to be easily put out of conceit with his prospects. Even that opprobrious name of "schoolmaster" had no terrors for him.
"Tell me about my friend's last illness," he said presently, gravely, gently, anxious to bring Lady Valeria to a more womanly frame of mind.
He thought that she must surely have some touch of tenderness, some regret for the husband who had been so good and loyal in his treatment of her; the man to whom she had been as an indulged and idolised daughter rather than as a wife; escaping all wifely servitude, seeking her own pleasure in all things, allowed to live her own life.
Lady Valeria told Bothwell about those last sad days: how the strong frame had been burnt up with fever, the broad chest racked with pain; how patiently weakness and suffering had been endured.
"He was a brave, good man," she said; "noble, unselfish to the last. His parting words were full of love and generosity. 'You will marry again,' he said. 'I have left no fetter upon your life. My latest prayer will be for your happiness.'"
"I wish we had both been worthier of his regard," said Bothwell gloomily.
He wondered at the supreme egotism of a nature which could be so little moved by this good man's death.