"I thank you, Bruce, dear boy, that you do not accord me all the blame, though I feel I fully deserve it. Let us change the subject to one more pleasant."
"In one moment, but first I have a confession to make. You may hear it from others, so I would like you to hear it first from me. You know that I am truthful, though unstable, and you can believe just what I say--not all the varnished reports you may hear."
"Go on," she said anxiously, as he paused.
"Well, then, I left you last night in a bad state of mind. I was mad, I think--simply mad--and in Norfolk I took more wine than was good for me. I swore to myself that I would not give up Grace. I hated her husband for having won her--I hated the child that calls _her_ mother and _him_ father--I hated you for separating us, and I swore that as she had loved me once she should love me again. Under the influence of this madness I took a guitar and sung under the window of the grand Winans' mansion a love-song--yes, aunt," laughing a little as she recoiled in dismay, "I dared to sing a love-song--I dared to serenade the married belle of society and queen of beauty with a love-song she had sung for me on the eve of our parting four years ago."
"Gotten myself into a difficulty, perhaps. The question is, did they hear me, or were they all asleep? If they heard and know me, I have undoubtedly provoked the wrath of that haughty Senator who calls her his own. I propose to extricate myself from this dilemma by leaving the place as quietly as I returned; not through cowardice, Aunt Conway, I won't have you think that," his eye flashed proudly, "but because I have caused her trouble enough already. I'll not stay here to bring further trouble and comment upon her. I won't have her pure name dragged through the scandal of an affair of honor. The only thing is to go away--that is the only reparation I can make, to go away and forget her, and be myself forgotten."
There was much that was noble in him yet; much that was high-toned, chivalric, high-spirited, and tender--all of it, alas, marred by that vacillating will, that wavering, doubting nature that was so long in making its mind up, and when made up soon changed it again.
The tea-bell suspended further converse on the subject. He gave her his arm in courtly fashion, and they descended to the dining-room, both too preoccupied to observe the curious kindly black faces that peeped at them from obscure stations, eager to see the handsome young master they remembered so well, and to see how he looked "since he'd come back and found his sweetheart married and gone," as if people wore their hearts in their faces. Ah, if they did what a gruesome looking crowd would meet us whithersoever we went.