"Why not?"
"Ah, Mabel, if I were as good as you I should not cry."
A faint blush passed over her countenance, and she was silent, till, presently, after many tears and sobs she told Mabel the cause of her distress.
She had been walking in the nut avenue by the side of the lane, and had thus overheard the greater part of the conversation between Mr. Ware and his nephew, narrated in the last chapter. The sound of her own name had attracted her attention, and, having once yielded to the temptation of listening, she found, as she imagined, sufficient excuse for wishing to hear all—and enough had, in this manner, reached her ears to send her home full of mortified feeling.
Mabel listened, with unfeigned surprise, to the story of this adventure—and to those sentences, which, applying directly to herself, Lucy had most accurately remembered—but, when she heard from her of the admiration which she had so unconsciously inspired, she looked entirely amazed, and at a loss. This Lucy dwelt upon with a candour which surprised her.
"The wretch," said the latter, when she had concluded her story—"the worst of it is, that I cannot hate him as he deserves."
"Do not say so," replied Mabel, "if you are able to forgive him so easily, you will have much less to suffer; there is nothing so painful as the indulgence of sinful or angry passions."
"Mabel," said Lucy, gravely, "you will marry him, of course, and I will try to wish you both happy."
"Dear Lucy," replied Mabel, taking her hand kindly, "I am very, very sorry for you, but rely on my friendship if you can, and I, who have suffered as much as you are suffering now, may be some support to you. Do not, for one moment, imagine, that, should Captain Clair ever place it in my power to marry him, I should for an instant think of it. I have told you already, that unhappy circumstances have rendered all thoughts of love repulsive to me, and, even if it were not so, I could not give my affections to one whom I have so long regarded as your lover."