Mary’s colour rose, as she cast down her eyes, and exclaimed with agitation, “No-no, indeed!”

Lady Emily threw her arms around her:—­“Dear Mary, you are perhaps the only person upon earth I would make such a confession to—­it was because I, who had plighted my faith to another—­I, who piqued myself upon my openness and fidelity—­I—­how it chokes me to utter it!  I was beginning to love him myself!—­only beginning, observe, for it is already over—­I needed but to be aware of my danger to overcome it.  Colonel Lennox is now no more to me than your lover, and Edward is again all that he ever was to me; but I—­what am I?—­faithless and self-deceived!” and a few tears dropped from her eyes.

Mary, too much affected to speak, could only press her in silence to her heart.

“These are tears of shame, of penitence, though I must own they look very like those of regret and mortification.  What a mercy it is that ‘the chemist’s magic art’ cannot ‘crystalise these sacred treasures,’” said she with a smile, as she shook a tear-drop from her hand; “they are gems I am really not at all fond of appearing in.”

“And yet you never appeared to greater advantage,” said Mary, as she regarded her with admiration.  “Ah! so you say; but there is, perhaps, a little womanish feeling lurking there.  And now you doubtless expect—­no, you don’t, but another would that I should begin a sentimental description of the rise and progress of this ill-fated attachment, as I suppose it would be styled in the language of romance; but in truth I can tell you nothing at all about it.”

“Perhaps Colonel Lennox,” said Mary, blushing, and hesitating to name her suspicion.

“No, no—­Colonel Lennox was not to blame.  There was no false play on either side; he is as much above the meanness of coquetry, as—­I must say it—­as I am.  His thoughts were all along taken up with you, even while he talked, and laughed, and quarrelled with me.  While I, so strong in the belief that worlds could not shake my allegiance to Edward, could have challenged all mankind to win my love; and this wicked, wayward, faithless heart kept silent till you spoke, and then it uttered such a fearful sound!  And yet I don’t think it was love neither—­’l’on n’aime bien qu’une seule fois; c’est la premiere;’—­it was rather a sort of an idle, childish, engrossing sentiment, that might have grown to something stronger; but ’tis past now.  I have shown you all the weakness of my heart—­despise me if you will.”

“Dearest Lady Emily, had I the same skill to show the sentiments of mine, you would there see what I cannot express—­how I admire this noble candour, this generous self-abasement—­”

“Oh, as to meanly hiding my faults, that is what I scorn to do.  I may be ignorant of them myself, and in ignorance I may cherish them; but, once convinced of them, I give them to the winds, and all who choose may pick them up.  Violent and unjust, and self-deceived, I have been, and may be again; but deceitful I never was, and never will be.”