"She loves me in secret," thought he; "but how charming is her coyness--how enchanting her modesty! My dear Lilian--"
"My Lord, oh cease to persecute me thus. What wrong have I done you? In what have I offended, that you should make me so utterly miserable?"
"What a soft, low, charming voice! Does it offend you, to hear the sighs of the most honourable love that ever warmed a human heart?"
"This is the mere cant of love-making--flirtation--the phrases you have addressed to hundreds. My Lord, I know their full value, and despise them. 'Tis enough! I can have no love for you."
"None--so for heaven sake spare me more of this humiliation, and let me begone to the house of Bruntisfield."
"Now what strange infatuation is this? No love for me?" mused the egotist. "Why, damsel, when I was in London with Charles, all the women were mad about me--I was quite the rage. Rochester and I led the way in everything. But that was before Bothwell Brig." He glanced at a veiled picture that often attracted his eye, and disturbed the current of his thoughts. "No love for me," he resumed, after a pause. "My pretty one, does my zeal offend you?"
"Like your flattery, it does; and my captivity here--a captivity which, I fear, will ever be a stain upon my honour, makes me abhor you."
"Abhor? Oh! 'tis a word never said to me before. Provoking Lilian! But," he added, maliciously, "you are right--your honour is lost, and there is only one way to redeem it."
She gave him a momentary glance of inquiry and disdain. Clermistonlee drew a ring from his finger. Lilian started back.
"Hah--then you are still thinking of him--this beggarly boy--this nameless soldier--this so-named Fenton. 'Tis a cursed infatuation, Madam; for doubtless, soldierlike he will forget you, while the flower of your youth is wasted in fruitless reliance on his constancy and advancement to honour and fortune."
"Forget me?" reiterated Lilian, raising her bright blue eyes to the speaker. "Oh no, he never will forget me! Dear, dear Walter," she added, weeping bitterly; "I know thy worth and truth too well to lose my own."
"He will forget thee," said Clermistonlee, angrily.
"Never!" replied Lilian, energetically clasping her hands. "In the busy city and on the lonely hills, in the hour of battle and storm by sea and land, he will ever think of me--ever, ever!"