"Lord Brompton," she finally said, in a slow, deliberate voice, from which all passion, even all affection was wanting, "I am sorry that you have spoken to me in this way, very sorry."
Poor Geoffrey had expected a different answer, and as he sat there looking at Maggie's pale, agitated face, he felt that there was a wall between them, where he had always found a kindly sympathy and an affectionate interest before. He had expected, perhaps, that she might not care about him enough to marry him, for he was not so young or conceited as to imagine that the priceless treasure of a woman's heart is to be lightly won at the first asking, but he had thought that his sweetheart would sympathize with him at his loss of her; with the touching pity which at such times is so akin to love and often its forerunner. Still he boldly went on with his declaration, feeling that he did not wish to leave a word unsaid of all that had swelled his heart with love and hope. If his love were all poured out and spurned, would not the chambers of his heart be swept and garnished for the future?
Yet what a desolate, haunted chamber it will be, he bitterly thought.
"I could not have told you a week ago that I loved you, Maggie," he said. "But I did, though; only I did not know it. I must have loved you since the day I first met you at the ball. You remember it, do you not? When you first smiled at me I felt that we had always known each other; and that evening I was content. Will you make me so for all my life?" He leaned over toward her and tried to take one of her hands; she edged it away from him, and turned toward him with flashing eyes and thin, compressed lips.
"It is not possible that I shall ever care for you, Lord Brompton, in the way in which you pretend to care for me."
"Pretend to care for you!" he said, angrily. "What do you mean by that? Why should I come to you with pretences? What should I gain by making a lying love to you?"
"Everything," she answered, coldly.
"I do not care to argue this, Miss Windsor," he said, turning his face away, pained to the heart. "I am in such a position that I may not; but I wished, while I had a chance, to tell you that I loved you. Good-by, Maggie, good-by. I do not wish to be melodramatic; but you may never see me again."
He kissed one of her hands, which lay at her side, and lifting himself from the rock, climbed down the cliff, a mist of tears before his eyes; and Maggie sat looking over the bay silent and sad, trying to reconcile the evident genuineness of Geoffrey's entreaty with what she knew of him.
Late that evening Mary Lincoln was sitting in her bedroom, in an arm-chair by the fire. Her thoughts were of Sir John Dacre.