A melancholy smile played upon her pallid features.
“Would I had known this before!” she said. “But it is now too late!”
“Why too late?” he exclaimed, despairingly. “I have told you I will take you as you are. Do as you please with your own. I will ask nothing!”
“Alas!” she exclaimed, sadly. “I repeat it is now too late. I cannot wed you!”
“Not wed me!” he ejaculated. “What hindrance is there to our union that did not exist before? Pardon me, sweet Teresa; I feel I have deeply offended you by my apparent selfishness, but I will try to make amends! I am sure you love me!”
“I do!” she replied, earnestly, and with a look of inexpressible tenderness. “You are the only person I have ever loved--not for your rank, but for yourself. Had I been fortunate enough to wed you, I should have been happy--happier than I deserve to be!”
“Not than you deserve to be, dearest Teresa!”
“_Yes,_” she replied, in accents of bitterest self-reproach. “I have no right to expect happiness!”
“What is the meaning of this?” he exclaimed, regarding her in astonishment.
“Do not question me,” she replied. “Some time or other you will understand me. I merely came to tell you it is best that we should part, and therefore I approve of your decision as conveyed to me by Mr. Carteret.”
“But I recall it,” he cried. “Think no more of it, sweetest Teresa.”
“Again I say it is too late,” she rejoined, in a sombre tone. “It is idle to prolong this discourse, which can lead to nothing. Farewell!”
“I do not bid you; but we cannot meet again.”
“If so, it would be useless to stay. But you will think differently when you become calmer.”
“You mistake,” she said. “I was never calmer than now. Had I not felt so, I would not have seen you. But the parting moment is come. Again, farewell!”
And with a look that remained for ever graven on his memory, she disappeared.
Bewildered as if he had been in a troubled dream, Lord Courland remained for some time in the cabinet, seriously reproaching himself with having caused the mental malady with which he thought Teresa had become suddenly afflicted.
He then went down-stairs, intending to consult Lady Thicknesse, but found she had gone to Brackley Hall with Sir Bridgnorth Charlton, who had driven her thither in his phaeton.