Page:The Semi-attached Couple.djvu/175

 "No, no, it is too late. I do not wish you, Lady Teviot, to give yourself any trouble on my account. I am the last person in the world to be gratified by a sacrifice. I have known all along, that you did not care for me, that you never have cared for me: and if I had wanted any further proof of the fact, I have been amply furnished with it in this conversation. No protestations, I beg, but leave me the pleasant conviction that in going abroad without you I am for once doing what you like."

"You are unjust, Teviot, you know you are."

"I do not know it. I appeal to yourself. Are you not in your inmost soul delighted that I am going? How should it be otherwise? Is there one of the name of Beaufort whom you do not love a thousand times better than me? I might ask, have you ever loved me at all? Why, did I not see you, in this very room, almost go down on your knees to your brother, to persuade him to stay a few more days? and when I tell you I am going away for six weeks, your countenance absolutely brightens; you almost said you were glad of it."

"Not glad that you were going; indeed I am not; but glad that I might go to Sophia without inconvenience to you. Indeed, Teviot, my sister is very ill. If you will read mamma's letter, you will see that I had good reason to be absorbed in that when you came in."

"It is no business of mine, why should I read it?"

"That you may see how ill poor Sophia is."

"I do not want to know anything about it," said Lord Teviot, who had worked himself up into such a rage that he hardly knew what he said. "I scarcely know Lady Sophia; why should I care whether she is ill or well?"

Helen's tears stopped instantly, and she gave him a look of indignation which startled him. It was the first he had ever seen. "Why indeed? No, it was foolish of me to expect you would."