“You'd scarcely benefit by the call, Lola,” said D'Esmonde, as he stole one hand within the folds of his robe. “Would you kill me?” cried she, growing deathly pale. “Be calm, and hear me,” said the priest, as he pressed her down upon a seat, and took one directly opposite to her. “It never could be my purpose, Lola, to have come here either to injure or revile you. I may, indeed, sorrow over the fall of one whose honorable ambitions might have soared so high; I may grieve for a ruin that was so causeless; but, save when anguish may wring from me a word of bitterness, I will not hurt your ears, Lola. I know everything,--all that has happened; yet have I to learn who counselled you to this flight.” “Here was my adviser,----here!” said she, pressing her hand firmly against her side. “My heart, bursting and indignant,----my slighted affection,----my rejected love! you ask me this,----you, who knew how I loved him.” For some seconds her emotion overcame her, and, as she covered her face with her hands, she swayed and rocked from side to side, like one in acute bodily pain. “I stooped to tell him all,--how I had thought and dreamed of him; how followed his footsteps; sought out the haunts that he frequented, and loved to linger in the places where he had been. I told him, too, of one night when I had even ventured to seek him in his own chamber, and was nearly detected by another who chanced to be there; my very dress was torn in my flight. There was no confession too humiliating for my lips to utter, nor my pen to trace; and what has been the return? But why do I speak of these things to one whose heart is sealed against affection, and whose nature rejects the very name of love? you will be a merciless judge, Eustace!” [Illustration: 362] “Go on; let me hear you out, Lola,” said the priest, gently.