Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/532

 Bah! Do people stand for an hour in the snow reflecting if they have forgotten their luggage? You men think women have no perception, no mind, no heart. You are going, George, and I shall never set eyes on you again—never, never; for I could not bear to see you miserable, and I alone of all the world must not endeavour to console you. Therefore I do not fear to speak frankly now. Listen; something has come between you and Cerise. Do not interrupt me. I know it. I feel it. Do not ask me why. It is not your hand that should add one stripe to my punishment. George, my poor girl is breaking her heart for your sake; and you, you the man of all others qualified to make a woman happy, and to be happy with her yourself, are destroying your home with your own hands. Look at me, George. I have seen the world, as you know. My lot has been brilliant, fortunate, envied by all; and yet—and yet—I have never had the chance that you so recklessly throw away. No, no; though I may have dreamed of it, I never so deceived myself as to fancy for a moment it was mine! Cerise loves you, George, loves the very ground you walk on, and you are leaving her in anger."

"I wish I could believe it," he muttered, in a hoarse, choking voice; for he was thinking of the pale, dark-eyed priest bending over the rose-trees with his wife.

"Do you think I can be deceived?" broke out the Marquise, seizing his hand with both her own, and then flinging it off in a burst of sorrowful reproach. "Wilful! heartless! cruel! Go, then, if go you must, and so farewell for ever. But remember, I warned you. I, who know by bitter experience, the madness, the shame, the agony of an impossible love!"

She turned from him and fled into the house, muttering, as she crossed its threshold, "The poor pelican! how it must hurt when she digs her beak into her bosom, and feeds her young with her own heart's blood!"

Sir George Hamilton stood looking after her for a moment; then he shook his head, drew his cloak tighter round him, and strode resolutely across the park to the "Hamilton Arms."

Thus it fell out that when he arrived there, he found the