This taunting reproof from Sandford made little impression upon Miss Milner, whose thoughts were all fixed on a subject of much more importance than the opinion which he entertained of her. She threw her arms about her friend the moment they were left alone, and asked, with anxiety, “What she thought of her behaviour?” Miss Woodley, who could not approve of the duplicity she had betrayed, still wished to reconcile her as much as possible to her own conduct, and replied, she “Highly commended the frankness with which she had, at last, acknowledged her sentiments.”
“Frankness!” cried Miss Milner, starting. “Frankness, my dear Miss Woodley! What you have just now heard me say, is all a falsehood.”
“How, Miss Milner!”
“Oh, Miss Woodley,” returned she, sobbing upon her bosom, “pity the agonies of my heart, my heart, by nature sincere, when such are the fatal propensities it cherishes, that I must submit to the grossest falsehoods rather than reveal the truth.”
“What can you mean?” cried Miss Woodley, with the strongest amazement in her face.
“Do you suppose I love Lord Frederick? Do you suppose I can love him? Oh fly, and prevent my guardian from telling him such an untruth.”
“What can you mean?” repeated Miss Woodley; “I protest you terrify me.” For this inconsistency in the behaviour of Miss Milner, appeared as if her senses had been deranged.
“Fly,” she resumed, “and prevent the inevitable ill consequence which will ensue, if Lord Frederick should be told this falsehood. It will involve us all in greater disquiet than we suffer at present.”
“Then what has influenced you, my dear Miss Milner?”
“That which impels all my actions—an unsurmountable instinct—a fatality, that will for ever render me the most miserable of human beings; and yet you, even you, my dear Miss Woodley, will not pity me.”