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Page 48
"Are you sorry that--that my unhappy cousin proved so unworthy?" he asks
at last, touching upon this subject with a good deal of nervousness. He
can not forget that once she had loved this miserable man.
"One must naturally feel sorry that anything human could be guilty of
such an awful intention," she returns gently, but with the utmost
unconcern.
Sir Adrian stares. Was he mistaken then? Did she never really care for
the fellow, or is this some of what Mrs. Talbot had designated as
Florence's "slyness"? No, once for all he would not believe that the
pure, sweet, true face looking so steadily into his could be guilty of
anything underhand or base.
"It was false that you loved him then?" he questions, following out the
train of his own thoughts rather than the meaning of her last words.
"That I loved Mr. Dynecourt!" she repeats in amazement, her color
rising. "What an extraordinary idea to come into your head! No; if
anything, I confess I felt for your cousin nothing but contempt and
dislike."
"Then, Florence, what has come between us?" he exclaims, seizing her
hand. "You must have known that I loved you many weeks ago. Nay, long
before last season came to a close; and then I believe--forgive my
presumption--that you too loved me."
"Your belief was a true one," she returns calmly, tears standing in her
beautiful eyes. "But you, by your own act, severed us."
"I did?"
"Yes. Nay, Sir Adrian, be as honest in your dealings with me as I am
with you, and confess the truth."
"I don't know what you mean," declares Adrian, in utter bewilderment;
"you would tell me that you think it was some act of mine that--that
ruined my chance with you?"
"You know it was"--reproachfully.
"I know nothing of the kind"--hotly. "I only know that I have always
loved you and only you, and that I shall never love another."
"You forget--Dora Talbot!" says Florence, in a very low tone. "I think,
Sir Adrian, your late coldness to her has been neither kind nor just."
"I have never been either colder or warmer to Dora Talbot than I have
been to any other ordinary acquaintance of mine," returns Sir Adrian,
with considerable excitement. "There is surely a terrible mistake
somewhere."
"Do you mean to tell me," says Florence, rising in her agitation, "that
you never spoke of love to Dora?"
"Certainly I spoke of love--of my love for you," he declares vehemently.
"That you should suppose I ever felt anything for Mrs. Talbot but the
most ordinary friendship seems incredible to me. To you, and you alone,
my heart has been given for many a day. Not the vaguest tenderness for
any other woman has come between my thoughts and your image since first
we met."
"Yet there was your love-letter to her--I read it with my own eyes!"
declares Florence faintly.
"I never wrote Mrs. Talbot a line in my life," says Sir Adrian, more and
more puzzled.
"You will tell me next I did not see you kissing her hand in the
lime-walk last September?" pursues Florence, flushing hotly with shame
and indignation.
"You did not," he declares vehemently. "I swear it. Of what else are
you going to accuse me? I never wrote to her, and I never kissed her
hand."
"It is better for us to discuss this matter no longer," says Miss
Delmaine, rising from her seat. "And for the future I can not--will
not--read to you here in the morning. Let us make an end of this false
friendship now at once and forever."
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