"Leonora is worth it all," said Lancaster, warmly.
"Yes, if one could win her; but then you were throwing all away, without anything in return. You should have remembered that you would lose all and gain nothing. What says the poet:
"'What care I how fair she be,
If she be not fair for me?'"
Lancaster said nothing, only sighed furiously.
"Look here, old fellow," said his friend. "Tell me the truth. If you could get Leonora, would you really throw over all the rest for her? Would you do the 'all for love, and the world well lost' business?"
An eloquent look from Lancaster's dark-blue eyes was his only answer.
"You would. Then you are far gone indeed. I do not think I ought to countenance you in such egregious folly. I think you will be cured of your madness when I tell you her second reason for not loving me."
Lancaster looked at him imploringly.
"Say what you are going to say, De Vere," he said, almost roughly, in the misery that filled his voice; "but, for God's sake, don't chaff! Think what I've endured already. I love Leonora to madness. If you think there's any hope for me, say so at once and put me out of misery."
"Lancaster, I'm sorry for you, upon my soul, but I don't think there's any chance for you at all. Miss West told me quite frankly that she was in love with another man."