"Most assuredly it is hopeless unless she—"
"That's no reason for you to stand here gawking! You've got to go and tell her. She wouldn't listen to me; but you're a man and his friend. You can make her see the injustice of it all. She's to blame as much as mamma. This never would have happened if it hadn't been for her shillyshallying."
Lord James paused before replying, his clear gray eyes dark with doubt and indecision.
"My word!" he murmured. "Could I but feel certain—This second failure, in so short a time! There is her future to be considered, as well."
"Her future as Countess of Avondale!" scoffed the girl.
"No, I assure you, no!" he insisted. "Can you believe I could be so low?—and at such a time as this! It was of the consequences to her as well as to him—He has failed again. Can he ever win out, even should he have her aid?"
"You claim to be his friend!"
"For his sake, no less than hers—Consider what it would mean to a man of his nature, unable to check himself in his downward course, yet conscious that it was wrecking her happiness, possibly her life."
"It won't happen, not if she really loves him. You don't half know him. He could do anything—anything!—if she went to him and asked him to do it for her sake."
"Could I but be sure of that!"