"I am not a good man," he went on, "according to your standard of goodness, Lady Mitford; but I am not a bad man according to my own. I have had rough tussles with life, and some heavy falls; but I swear there is a dastardly, cold, heartless ingratitude in this business which I cannot bear; and in the sight of you there is something terrible to me. Men know this man's history; we know from what degradation you raised him; we are not so blind and coarse that we cannot guess with what fidelity and patience you loved him when it was at its deepest. And now, to see him return to it; to see him, without any excuse of poverty or struggle, in the enjoyment of all that fate and fortune have blindly given him; to see him play the part of a liar and a villain to you--to you--to see you left unprotected, openly neglected and betrayed, to run the gauntlet of society such as ours! I cannot see all this, Lady Mitford, and pretend that I do not see it; and what is more, you do not wish that I could. You are too true, too womanly to form such a wish; and you are too honest to express it, in obedience to any laws of cant." He went near to her; he bent down, he lowered his voice, he gently drew away the hands that hid her face from him; they dropped into her lap, nerveless and idle; the first tears he had ever seen in her eyes dimmed them now. "You mean kindly, as you have always meant to me, Sir Laurence," she said; "but we cannot discuss this matter,--indeed we cannot. I am weaker than I ought to be,--I should not listen to this; but oh, God help me, I have no friends; I am all alone, all alone!" If she had been beautiful in the pride and dignity of her sorrowful composure, if his strong heart had quailed and his firm nerve had shrunk at the sight of her pale and placid grief, how far more beautiful was she now, when the restraint had fallen from her, when the eyes looked at him from the shadow of wet lashes, and the perfect lips trembled with irrepressible emotion. "No!" he said vehemently; and as he spoke he stood close before her, and stretched his hands towards her, but without taking hers; the gesture was one of mingled denial and appeal, and had no touch of boldness in it; "no, you are not alone; yes, you have friends,--at least you have one friend. Listen to me,--do not fear to hear me; let us at least venture to tell and listen to the truth. This man, to whom you were given as a guardian angel, is quite unworthy of you. You know it; your keen intellect accepts a fact and all its consequences, however terrible to your woman's heart, and does not palter with the truth. Are you to be always miserable because you have been once mistaken? If you had known, if you had been able to comprehend the real nature of this man, would you, could you ever have loved him?" She put up her hand with a faint gesture of protest; but he impetuously waved it away, and went on, once more striding up and down.