“Ah! there’s the pang; ’twas I betrayed her to them.” “You wrong yourself, lady,--I am convinced you do. I am afraid that I can make a better guess at what causes the melancholy of Jane Lambert than you can; however, I do not feel at liberty to speak more plainly.” “I tell you it was I who placed her in the painful perplexity in which you once surprised her. The gentleman from whom you saw her part was an unhappy relative of mine: mine was the errand she was doing; mine was the secret that she kept with so noble a constancy:--that gentleman was nought to her.” “Indeed! was he not her lover?” “No: would he were! and yet the wish were selfish, and not kind, for she loves another.” “I am utterly confused:--how much have my suspicions wronged her:--she is a generous girl;--how can I have been so deceived? And yet the gallant kissed her hand upon his knees.” “I know it; but even in that action he only charged her with his homage to another: she was but love’s messenger.” “Lady, I am troubled in my thoughts at this sad business: it is plain I wronged her; plain that she is constant as a star to friend or to lover. What she has done in friendship may well command my lasting admiration. You tell me that she loves. Why is her lover unknown and unavowed? What is his condition? Where is he? What barriers divide their fortunes and their hopes?” “One only--he knows not of her love.” “Whoever he may be, wherever he may dwell, in ignorance of such a vast possession as such a woman’s love--methinks, lady, it is your duty, your solemn and sweet duty, to make it known to him. I envy you the joy: let me be the bearer of your words or letter; so shall I some atonement make for my unworthy suspicions of her danger.” “You forget--these are no times for lovers’ vows; these are no times for marrying and giving in marriage: such knowledge might depress the object of her love with care:--to see happiness offered to our heart’s want, and then, in the self-same instant, wrested from us by the iron hand of war, and scared away by the blast of discord, is to make acquaintance with a sorrow which, by ignorance, we might have escaped.” “I think not with you, lady: it were pity for any man to die in his first field unconscious of such a blessing.” “As I have a human heart, I can conceive of such a feeling, and like the noble thought.--Long may you live, Master Juxon, to prove how well Jane Lambert loves you!” So saying, Katharine rose and left the gallery.