Hargrave, on the contrary, was perfectly cool, but very grave, as he bowed to him somewhat stiffly, and said, courteously—
"My friend, Captain Clair, was—"
"I know what you would say, Colonel Hargrave," interrupted Beauclerc, quickly, "he would ask me for an explanation of the strange circumstances under which he met me this morning—I will not ask what right he has to question my conduct—I am too angry with myself to seek to take shelter under any such subterfuge—I have done wrong, I now see, but how to atone for that I cannot tell."
"I fear there is no atonement to be made, except the poor satisfaction of an open explanation and apology."
"That I am most ready to make," replied Beauclerc, with unaffected sadness, "and I wish I had more to offer."
He then hurried over what he had repeated before to Lucy, while Hargrave listened with that acute attention which seldom failed to give him an insight into the characters of those about him, when he chose to exercise it.
"Miss Lucy Villars," said Beauclerc, in conclusion, "was the first acquaintance I made here, and, knowing her to be the intimate friend, nay, almost the only admitted friend of my wife, I looked upon her with peculiar interest—not for an instant doubting her knowledge of the connection existing between her friend and myself, from the readiness with which she fell into my confidence—and, indeed, from her replies to all my allusions to the subject. Believing that she knew me to be a married man, I never (pardon my alluding to this subject,) thought the attention she bestowed upon me any other than that, which love for her friend, and pity for my situation, called for."
"Are you sincere in that?" said Hargrave suddenly, changing his tone of courteous attention to deeper earnestness, as, with his dark eyes fixed upon him, he waited his answer.
"I am," returned Beauclerc, decidedly.
"And you were not aware of the danger in which you placed a young girl of ardent imagination?"