“Destroyed your happiness, Mr. Reilly! why, how could the service you rendered papa last night have such an effect?”
“I will be candid, and tell you, Miss Folliard. I know that what I am about to say will offend you—it was by making me acquainted with his daughter, and by bringing me under the influence of beauty which has unmanned—distracted me—beauty which I could not resist—which has overcome me—subdued me—and which, because it is beyond my reach and my deserts, will occasion me an unhappy life—how long soever that life my last.”
“Mr. Reilly,” exclaimed the Cooleen Bawn, “this—this—is—I am quite unprepared for—I mean—to hear that such noble and generous conduct to my father should end in this. But it cannot be. Nay, I will not pretend to misunderstand you. After the service you have rendered to him and to myself, it would be uncandid in me and unworthy of you to conceal the distress which your words have caused me.”
“I am scarcely in a condition to speak reasonably and calmly,” replied Reilly, “but I cannot regret that I have unconsciously sacrificed my happiness, when that sacrifice has saved you from distress and grief and sorrow. Now that I know you, I would offer—lay down—my life, if the sacrifice could save yours from one moment's care. I have often heard of what love—love in its highest and noblest sense—is able to do and to suffer for the good and happiness of its object, but now I know it.”
She spoke not, or rather she was unable to speak; but as she pulled out her snow-white handkerchief, Reilly could observe the extraordinary tremor of her hands; the face, too, was deadly pale.
“I am not making love to you, Miss Folliard,” he added. “No, my religion, my position in life, a sense of my own unworthiness, would prevent that; but I could not rest unless you knew that there is one heart which, in the midst of unhappiness and despair, can understand, appreciate, and love you. I urge no claim. I am without hope.”
The fair girl (Cooleen Bawn) could not restrain her tears; but wept—yes, she wept. “I was not prepared for this,” she replied. “I did not think that so short an acquaintance could have—Oh, I know not what to say—nor how to act. My father's prejudices. You are a Catholic.”
“And will die one, Miss Folliard.”
“But why should you be unhappy? You do not deserve to be so.”
“That is precisely what made me ask you just now if you believed in fate.”