“Lady!” exclaimed Charley Stewart, staggering back with absolute amazement, and altogether unable to answer coherently, from the confusion he was thrown into—“I have been foolishly reserved, lady. I have been strangely and grievously misconceived. Yet I thought I had spoken plainly enough.—I—I—I am altogether unworthy of any one of thy station. I am already pledged to another.”
“I was not altogether unprepared for some such confession,” said the lady, with a self-possession, arising from the circumstance, that she spoke truly. “I had heard, and I did see enough to make me aware that something had passed between thee and the silly girl MacDermot. But these were childish ties, entered into when thou couldst have no foreknowledge of thine own fortunes; and they must, of stern necessity, yield to that expediency which now demands thine exaltation.”
“Lady,” replied Stewart, who by this time began to be somewhat more master of his faculties, “I have learned enough to know that true exaltation can never be purchased by treachery, perfidy, and cruelty. Rosa MacDermot and I loved one another whilst she was yet a child, it is true, but we have loved one another ever since with a growing affection, which has produced vows of the most solemn nature between us. I love her more than I do life itself; and not for all the wealth or honours that this world could bestow, would I cease to love her.”
“So great a constancy, and so true a heart, proves but the more how much thou wert born for knighthood,” said the lady, calmly. “And perhaps, entangled as thou seemest to have been, it might have been due to such honour as might befit a knight, to have clung to engagements so made. But to render such a case of so great self devotion rational, it would at least be requisite that it should be mutual. Hast thou proof that it is really so? Hast thou never had doubts on that score? No suspicions?”
“Proof of the love of Rosa MacDermot, lady?” exclaimed Charley, with astonishment. “Doubts of Rosa? I should as soon ask for proof that the blessed sun gives light, or have doubts that the glorious orb might drop from the firmament.”
“Other men before thee have been as honestly confiding, and yet have been deceived,” said the lady. “The humble soil where thou hast rooted thine affections, is not always that which produces the most virtuous fruits.”
“What wouldst thou hint, lady?” demanded Charley, in a disturbed and agitated tone.
“I grieve to tell thee,” replied the lady. “It pains me to be compelled to undeceive thee, by withdrawing thee from thy pleasing dreams, to look boldly on the afflicting truth. Yet I must tell thee, that thy heroic constancy hath not been met by a like unshaken return of it.”
“Say—what?—Holy saints protect me!” cried Charley Stewart, in a greatly agitated and excited manner. “What wouldst thou insinuate lady? Rosa unfaithful?—Oh! impossible!—Where is the liar who hath thus abused thine ear regarding her who is purity and truth itself? Tell me his name, that I may make my sword drink his base black heart’s blood!”
“Be calm, Stewart,” replied the lady, with imperturbable placidity of manner. “Thou wilt gain nothing by yielding thyself up to blind rage. I trust thou wilt see that it is no ordinary affection in me that can prompt me to the disclosure that I am now about to make to thee.”