'If I had not been, had your position been other than it is, Lady Forestfield,' said Nugent, 'I scarcely think I should be here now. Believe me, my earnest desire is to serve you in any possible way.'
'I am grateful to you for these expressions, Sir Nugent Uffington, but I do not see how you can aid me. There is nothing to be done,' she added with a sigh; 'I have taken my own course, and I must abide the consequences.'
'There is much to be done,' said Uffington gently, 'in mitigating the severity of your sentence, though the person with whom one has to deal renders the operation somewhat difficult.'
'I can look for no mercy at Lord Forestfield's hands,' said May, shaking her head; 'from him I can only expect the worst that could befall me.'
'Under compulsion a man has to set aside his own wishes and desires, and one might find means of making even Lord Forestfield do much that would be naturally disagreeable to him,' said Nugent. 'I know nothing of him, but from what I have heard, I cannot imagine how Lady Stortford, with her knowledge of the world, could have permitted you, child as you were, to make such a marriage.'
'Child as I was, I had a strong will of my own,' said May--'a will which I was accustomed to indulge, no matter what opposition was made to it or by whom. My poor mother, who, in this instance at least, seemed to be endowed with strange foresight, prayed me to reject Lord Forestfield's advances, urging as a reason that she was sure I was but temporarily infatuated, and that I should soon repent my determination. I would not listen to her, I would not hear a word against him; I had my own way, and--this is the result.'
'Temporarily infatuated. Was Lady Stortford right? were you, then, so deeply fascinated by this man?'
May paused an instant. 'All that you have ever heard or read of insane infatuation was nothing to mine,' she said; 'I worshipped him with all my soul. Brought up strictly as I had been, I believed there was no position in the world I would not have gladly accepted to insure always being at his side. I cannot tell,' she said, after another pause, 'why I am speaking thus freely to you, except that I have had no one in the world to open my heart to; and though I have never seen you before, I have instinctive confidence in you.'