"Lady Griswold, if you will refer to the letters of mine to which you are alluding, you will perceive that I merely suggested that it was possible that you might find more congenial surroundings in England than in Mexico."
"You--you meant more than that. And, Ronald--Ronald, I haven't ceased to love you all the time!"
"Lady Griswold, you compel me to use what may seem to be the language of discourtesy. How was I to know that, married to one man, you loved another? When you married him you died to me. I thought that, for me, all love was dead. But when I saw your daughter Inez--I have a constitutional objection to use the language of violence, or of passion. It is a plain statement of the naked truth that, when I saw your daughter Inez, that instant I knew that for me all love was not yet dead. It may appear to you that I have known her but a short time. Too short a time for knowledge. But I will say to you what I would not say to all the world. I seem to have known her--yes, certainly for years. I must certainly have known her in my dreams. I could have drawn her portrait, which would have been her very duplicate, instinct with all but life before she came into this room."
"Indeed. Is--is that so, Ronald?"
"I must have loved her in the spirit before I met her in the flesh. I must have done. And the strangest part of it all is that she seems, also, to have loved me."
"I do not think that that is strange, though the whole affair is, perhaps, a little strange."
"So, Lady Griswold, I have come to crave your permission to make your child my wife."
"I see. You want to marry Inez. Now--now I understand. Well, Ronald, I think I have known you long enough to be able to trust you with my child." The door opened to admit Miss Griswold. "Inez, the strangest thing has happened, which I am sure will overwhelm you with surprise. Mr Ferguson actually tells me that he loves you."
How we can smile, some of us, both men and women, when our very hearts are weeping gouts of blood. It is a curious illustration of the dual personality which is in each of us.
"My dear mother, that is no news. I know he loves me!"