"Oh! oh!—what had he thought all this time?—what had he suffered? How his heart must have been agonized!—how terribly he must have felt the mortification,—the distress! Oh!"
We recovered him at length from the dead faint into which he had fallen. Polly, who thought but of the body, insisted on bringing him "a good heavy-glass of Port-wine sangaree, with toasted crackers in it"; and wouldn't let him speak till he had drunken and eaten. Then she went out of the room, and left me alone with my justly incensed lover.
I took a brioche, and sat down humbly at the head of the sofa. He held out his hand, which I took and pressed in mine,—silently, to be sure; but then no words could tell how I had felt, and now felt,—how humiliated! how grieved! How wrongly I must have seemed to feel and to act! how wrongly I must have acted,—though my conscience excused me from feeling wrongly,—so to have deluded Herbert!
At last I murmured something regretful and tearful about Lieutenant Herbert—Herbert! how I had admired that name!—and now, this Ithuriel touch, how it had changed it and him forever to me! What was in a name?—sure enough! As I gazed on the pale face on the couch, I should not have cared, if it had been named Alligator,—so elevated was I beyond all I had thought or called trouble of that sort! so real was the trouble that could affect the feelings, the sensitiveness, of the noble being before me!
At length he spoke, very calmly and quietly, setting down the empty tumbler. I trembled, for I knew it must come.
"I was so glad that fool came in, Del! For, to tell the truth, I felt really too weak to talk. I haven't slept for two nights, and have been on my feet and talking for four hours,—then I have had no dinner"—
"Oh!"
"And a damned intelligent jury, (I beg your pardon, but it's a great comfort to swear, sometimes,) that I can't humbug. But I must! I must, to-morrow!" he exclaimed, springing up from the sofa and walking hurriedly across the room.
"Oh, do sit down, if you are so tired!"
"I cannot sit down, unless you will let me stop thinking. I have but one idea constantly."