to meet you thus; nothing but the strong expressions in your
letter--and--and--in short, my fear that you meditated some desperate
design, at which I could not guess, caused me to yield to your wish for
an interview." She paused, and Clifford still preserving silence, she
added, with some little coldness in her tone: "If you have really aught
to say to me, you must allow me to request that you speak it quickly.
This interview, you must be sensible, ought to end almost as soon as it
begins."

"Hear me, then!" said Clifford, mastering his embarrassment and
speaking in a firm and clear voice; "is that true which I have but just
heard,--is it true that I have been spoken of in your presence in terms
of insult and affront?"

It was now for Lucy to feel embarrassed; fearful to give pain, and yet
anxious that Clifford should know, in order that he might disprove,
the slight and the suspicion which the mystery around him drew upon his
name, she faltered between the two feelings, and without satisfying the
latter, succeeded in realizing the fear of the former.

"Enough!" said Clifford, in a tone of deep mortification, as his quick
ear caught and interpreted, yet more humiliatingly than the truth, the
meaning of her stammered and confused reply,--"enough! I see that it is
true, and that the only human being in the world to whose good opinion
I am not indifferent has been a witness of the insulting manner in which
others have dared to speak of me!"

"But," said Lucy, eagerly, "why give the envious or the idle any excuse?
Why not suffer your parentage and family to be publicly known? Why are
you here"--and her voice sank into a lower key--"this very day,
unasked, and therefore subject to the cavils of all who think the
poor distinction of an invitation an honour? Forgive me, Mr. Clifford;
perhaps I offend. I hurt you by speaking thus frankly; but your good
name rests with yourself, and your friends cannot but feel angry that
you should trifle with it."

"Madam," said Clifford; and Lucy's eyes, now growing accustomed to the
darkness, perceived a bitter smile upon his lips, "my name, good or ill,
is an object of little care to me. I have read of philosophers who pride
themselves in placing no value in the opinions of the world. Rank me
among that sect. But I am--I own I am--anxious that you alone, of all
the world, should not despise me; and now that I feel you do, that you
must, everything worth living or hoping for is past!"