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Page 31
"Let me hear it then," she urges, leaning back with a weary sigh.
"I have just received this letter," says Mrs. Talbot, taking from her
pocket the letter Arthur had given her, and holding it out to Florence,
"and I want to know how I shall answer it. Would you--would you honestly
advise me, Flo, to go and meet him as he desires?"
"As who desires?"
"Ah, true; you do not know, of course! I am so selfishly full of myself
and my own concerns, that I seem to think every one else must be full
of them too. Forgive me, dearest, and read his sweet little letter, will
you?"
"Of whom are you speaking--to whose letter do you refer?" asks Florence,
a little sharply, in the agony of her heart.
"Florence! Whose letter would I call 'sweet' except Sir Adrian's?"
answers her cousin, with gentle reproach.
"But it is meant for you, not for me," says Miss Delmaine, holding the
letter in her hand, and glancing at it with great distaste. "He probably
intended no other eyes but yours to look upon it."
"But I must obtain advice from some one, and who so natural to expect it
from as you, my nearest relative? If, however"--putting her handkerchief
to her eyes--"you object to help me, Florence, or if it distresses you
to read--"
"Distresses me?" interrupts Florence haughtily. "Why should it distress
me? If you have no objection to my reading your--lover's--letter, why
should I hesitate about doing so? Pray sit down while I run through it."
Dora having seated herself, Florence hastily reads the false note from
beginning to end. Her heart beats furiously as she does so, and her
color comes and goes; but her voice is quite steady when she speaks
again.
"Well," she says, putting the paper from her as though heartily glad
to be rid of it, "it seems that Sir Adrian wishes to speak to you on
some subject interesting to you and him alone, and that he has chosen
the privacy of the lime-walk as the spot in which to hold your
_t�te-�-t�te_. It is quite a simple affair, is it not? Though really,
why he could not arrange to talk privately to you in some room in the
castle, which is surely large enough for the purpose, I can not
understand."
"Dear Sir Adrian is so romantic," says Dora coyly.
"Is he?" responds her cousin dryly. "He has always seemed to me the
sanest of men. Well, on what matter do you wish to consult me?"
"Dear Florence, how terribly prosaic and unsympathetic you are to-day,"
says Dora reproachfully; "and I came to you so sure of offers of love
and friendship! I want you to tell me if you think I ought to meet him
or not."
"Why not?"
"I don't know"--with a little simper. "Is it perhaps humoring him too
much? I have always dreaded letting a man imagine I cared for him,
unless fully, utterly, assured of his affection for me."
Florence colors again, and then grows deadly pale, as this poisoned barb
pierces her bosom.
"I should think," she says slowly, "after reading the letter you have
just shown me, you ought to feel assured."
"You believe I ought, really?"--with a fine show of eagerness. "Now, you
are not saying this to please me--to gratify me?"
"I should not please or gratify any one at the expense of truth."
"No, of course not. You are such a high-principled girl, so different
from many others. Then you think I might go and meet him this evening
without sacrificing my dignity in any way?"
"Certainly."
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