"Stay, Lord Albert, and before you condemn, hear me.--It is true I was on the point of betraying a trust--of revealing a secret--of becoming _really dishonourable_--for what? for the sole purpose of befriending you--for the sole purpose of snatching _you_ from a danger which it was then time to prevent your falling into; but since that moment is past for ever--since it is now in vain that I should prove useful to you by being false to another, my lips must for ever be sealed." "Strange and unaccountable mystery! What, you will not tell me--you will not endeavour to warn me against a danger which hangs over me--is this friendship? How _can you_ know that the time is past for pointing out to me such danger? How can _you_ be so thoroughly acquainted with the events of my life--the secrets of my heart, as first to imagine my fate _was_ in your hands, and then suddenly be equally well assured it is so no longer? No, I cannot conceive there is any friendship in such conduct." "Ah," said Lady Hamlet Vernon, sighing, "I see you are like all your sex; you receive the devotion of a heart as a thing of course; you take into no consideration the pain, the remorse I felt, at the idea of becoming false to a trust for your sake, when I thought that by so doing I might save you from misfortune. And now that I tell you the time is gone by when I might possibly have been of use, even by the sacrifice of my own integrity, you still wish for that sacrifice, although it can avail you nothing:--is this generous?" Lord Albert felt confused; he was even moved by the look, the air, the words of Lady Hamlet Vernon, but still the disappointment wrung his heart, and jealousy, with every other feeling, goaded him on to press for a disclosure of the secret. "I am not ungrateful, indeed I am not; I feel deeply the kind interest you take in me; but if that interest does not sleep, or rather if it is not extinguished, I still plead to be made acquainted with a circumstance so very nearly affecting my welfare; and when I say that your disclosing it to me would be like keeping it in another casket, surely, surely you will not deny me." "In this respect, my dear Lord Albert, I alone can be the judge, and even at the risk of losing your good opinion, or rather of losing your friendship for the time being, I must persist in remaining silent." There was a long pause, which was at last interrupted by Lady Hamlet Vernon resuming the conversation.