Constance.—"If I had not been blind, blind, blind, I never could have seen the slightest similarity. Like him? Never!"
Bartlett.—"Ah! Then perhaps the resemblance, which we have noticed from time to time, and which has been the cause of some annoyance and embarrassment all round, was simply a disguise which I had assumed for the time being to accomplish a purpose of my own?"
Constance.—"Oh, don't jest it away! It's your soul that I see now, your true and brave and generous heart; and if you pardoned me for mistaking you a single moment for one who had neither soul nor heart, I could never look you in the face again!"
Bartlett.—"You seem to be taking a good provisional glare at me beforehand, then, Miss Wyatt. I've never been so nearly looked out of countenance in my life. But you needn't be afraid; I shall not pardon your crime." Constance abruptly drops her head upon his breast, and again instantly repels herself.
Constance.—"No, you must not if you could. But you can't—you can't care for me after hearing what I could say to my father"—
Bartlett.—"That was in a moment of great excitement."
Constance.—"After hearing me rave about a man so unworthy of—any one—you cared for. No, your self-respect—everything—demands that you should cast me off."
Bartlett.—"It does. But I am inexorable,—you must have observed the trait before. In this case I will not yield even to my own colossal self-respect." Earnestly: "Ah, Constance, do you think I could love you the less because your heart was too true to swerve even from a traitor till he was proved as false to honour as to you?" Lightly again: "Come, I like your fidelity to worthless people; I'm rather a deep and darkling villain myself."
Constance, devoutly.—"You? Oh, you are as nobly frank and open as—as—as papa!"