He was pacing up and down the long room with rapid, excited strides; his fine face flushed, and his hands tightly shut, as if to keep down the bitterness that rebelliously rose at this unlooked-for avowal. He had expected to hear some light, trivial fault, magnified by a morbid imagination; but not a clandestine marriage. No man likes to hear that the woman he loves has ever loved another; and Lady Maud Percy had already seemed so angelic that this sudden “falling off” of his high ideal, brought with it a pang like the bitterness of death.
And therefore, pacing up and down—up and down, with brain and heart in a tumult—Lord Ernest Villiers’ pride for one moment overcame and mastered his love. For one brief moment only—for then his eyes fell on the drooping figure and despair-bowed young head; and the anguished attitude went to his heart, bringing back a full tide of pity, love, and forgiveness. All was forgotten, but that she was the only one he ever did or could love; and lifting the sorrowing head and grief-bowed form in his arms, once more he clasped her closer to the manly young heart she could feel throbbing under her own, and whispered:
“My own life’s darling still! Oh, Maude! if you must grieve, it shall be on my breast. If you have erred, so, too, have I—so have we all often. I will forget all but that you have promised my arms shall be your home forever!”
“And you forgive and love me still? Oh, Lord Ernest!” He kissed away her tears as she wept aloud.
“One thing more, dearest. Who was my Maude’s first love!”
He felt a convulsive shiver run through the delicate form he held. He felt her breast heave and throb as if the name was struggling to leave it, and could not.
“Tell me, Maude, for I must know.”
“Oh, saints in heaven! how can I? Oh, Lord Ernest! this humiliation is more than I can endure.”
“Speak, Lady Maude! for I must know.”
She lifted her eyes to his, full of unspeakable anguish, and then dropped her head heavily again; for in that fixed, grave, noble face, full of love and pity as it was, there was no yielding now.