“Oh—indeed!” said Lizzie, with a look of astonishment, perfectly well assumed. She had already begun to consider whether, after all, Mr. Emilius—would do.
“Yes;—Lady Eustace; it is so. You and I have known each other now for many months, and I have received the most unaffected pleasure from the acquaintance—may I not say from the intimacy which has sprung up between us?” Lizzie did not forbid the use of the pleasant word, but merely bowed. “I think that, as a devoted friend and a clergyman, I shall not be thought to be intruding on private ground in saying that circumstances have made me aware of the details of the robberies by which you have been so cruelly persecuted.” So the man had come about the diamonds, and not to make an offer! Lizzie raised her eyebrows and bowed her head with the slightest possible motion. “I do not know how far your friends or the public may condemn you, but—”
“My friends don’t condemn me at all, sir.”
“I am so glad to hear it!”
“Nobody has dared to condemn me, except this impudent woman here, who wants an excuse for not paying me what she owes me.”
“I am delighted. I was going to explain that although I am aware you have infringed the letter of the law, and made yourself liable to proceedings which may, perhaps, be unpleasant—”
“I ain’t liable to anything unpleasant at all, Mr. Emilius.”
“Then my mind is greatly relieved. I was about to remark, having heard in the outer world that there were those who ventured to accuse you of—of perjury—”
“Nobody has dared to accuse me of anything. What makes you come here and say such things?”
“Ah—Lady Eustace. It is because these calumnies are spoken so openly behind your back.”
“Who speaks them? Mrs. Carbuncle, and Lord George Carruthers;—my enemies.”
Mr. Emilius was beginning to feel that he was not making progress. “I was on the point of observing to you that according to the view of the matter which I, as a clergyman, have taken, you were altogether justified in the steps which you took for the protection of property which was your own, but which had been attacked by designing persons.”
“Of course I was justified,” said Lizzie.
“You know best, Lady Eustace, whether any assistance I can offer will avail you anything.”
“I don’t want any assistance, Mr. Emilius—thank you.”
“I certainly have been given to understand that they who ought to stand by you with the closest devotion have, in this period of what I may, perhaps, call—tribulation, deserted your side with cold selfishness.”
“But there isn’t any tribulation, and nobody has deserted my side.”
“I was told that Lord Fawn—”
“Lord Fawn is an idiot.”
“Quite so;—no doubt.”
“And I have deserted him. I wrote to him this very morning, in answer to a pressing letter from him to renew our engagement, to tell him that that was out of the question. I despise Lord Fawn, and my heart never can be given where my respect does not accompany it.”
“A noble sentiment, Lady Eustace, which I reciprocate completely. And now, to come to what I may call the inner purport of my visit to you this morning, the sweet cause of my attendance on you, let me assure you that I should not now offer you my heart, unless with my heart went the most perfect respect and esteem which any man ever felt for a woman.” Mr. Emilius had found the necessity of coming to the point by some direct road, as the lady had refused to allow him to lead up to it in the manner he had proposed to himself. He still thought that what he had said might be efficacious, as he did not for a moment believe her assertions as to her own friends, and the nonexistence of any trouble as to the oaths which she had falsely sworn. But she carried the matter with a better courage than he had expected to find, and drove him out of his intended line of approach. He had, however, seized his opportunity without losing much time.
“What on earth do you mean, Mr. Emilius?” she said.
“I mean to lay my heart, my hand, my fortunes, my profession, my career at your feet. I make bold to say of myself that I have,
