"Oh, Lilian! Lilian!" said the poor wanderer in a voice of great pathos; "after the lapse of five long years of exile and suffering, what a meeting is this for us! Under what a course of perils have the hope of my return and your truth not sustained me? My God! that I should find you thus. Is this the welcome I expected?"
Summoning all her courage and that self-possession which women have in so great a degree, Lilian (though her eyes were full of tears) averted her face, and recalled the fatal letter of Finland, on which had turned the whole of her future fate.
"Look at me, adorable Lilian!" said Walter, kneeling and stretching his arms towards her.
Lilian dared not to look; but she trembled violently and sobbed heavily.
"Look at me, beloved one," said Walter wildly and passionately. "Changed though I am, and though another holds your heart, you cannot have forgotten me, or learned to view me with aversion and contempt. If this Lord has won your affection--"
"Oh, say not that, Walter," sobbed Lilian "do not say my affection."
"Oh, horror! what misery can equal such an avowal? My fatal absence has undone us both."
"Oh, yes, yes; upbraid me not," said Lilian in a piercing voice. "I was faithful and true until you forsook me for another. To God I appeal," she cried, raising her clasped hands and weeping eyes to Heaven, "kneeling I appeal if ever in word, or thought, or hope I swerved in truth from thee, dear Walter, until tidings of your marriage reached me; when, stung by jealousy, by pride, by disappointment and despair, and urged by the unmerited contumely that had fallen upon me, I yielded to the exhortations of my friends, and in an evil hour----." She covered her face with her hands, and could say no more.
"Heaven preserve my senses!" ejaculated Walter Fenton, "for here the wiles of Hell have been at work. We have been deceived, cruelly deceived, dear Lilian, by some deep-laid plot of villany which this right hand shall yet unravel and revenge. And you are the wife of Clermistonlee? Hear me, unfortunate! You are less than--ah, how shall I say it? You are not and cannot be his wife!"
"You rave, poor Walter. Our doom is irrevocably sealed. Our paths in life must be for ever separate. Oh, for the love of gentle mercy begone, and let us meet no more, for at this moment I feel my brain whirling, and I am trembling on the very verge of madness."