binding on a man. Is that
the principle of an honourable heart, Mr. Brown?"
Wilton was silent for a moment, but Lady Laura evidently looked for a
reply; and he answered at length, "No, it is not, Lady Laura; but I
fully believe, ere taking any such vows, Sherbrooke would openly
acknowledge his view of them, and, having done so, would look upon
them as mere empty air."
Lady Laura laughed, evidently applying her companion's words to her
own situation with Lord Sherbrooke; and Wilton, unwilling that one
word from his lips should have a tendency to thwart the purposes of
the Earl of Byerdale, in a matter where he had no right to interfere,
hastened to add, "Let me assure you, Lady Laura, however, at the same
time that I make this acknowledgment with regard to Sherbrooke, that
I am fully convinced, if he were to pledge his word of honour to keep
those vows, he would die rather than violate that pledge."
"That is to say," replied Lady Laura, somewhat bitterly, "that he has
erected an idol whose oracles he can interpret as he will, and calls
it honour, denying that there is any other God. But let us speak of
it no more, Mr. Brown; these things make one sad."
Wilton was glad to speak of something else; for he felt himself bound
by every tie to say all that he could in favour of Lord Sherbrooke;
and yet he could not find in his heart to aid, in the slightest
degree, in forwarding a scheme which could end in nothing but misery
to the sweet and innocent girl beside him. He changed the topic at
once, then, and exerted himself to draw her mind away from the matter
on which they had just been speaking.
Nevertheless, that subject, while they went on, remained in the mind
of each; and Lady Laura might have discovered--if she had been at
all apprehensive of her own feelings--that it is a dangerous thing to
do as she had done, and raise, for any eye, even a corner of that
veil which bides the heart, unless we are inclined to raise it
altogether. Her subsequent conversation with Wilton took its tone
throughout, entirely from what had gone before. Without knowing it,
or rather, we should say, without perceiving it, they suffered it to
be mingled with deep feelings; shadowed forth, perhaps, more than
actually expressed. A softness, too, came over it--we insist not,
though, perhaps, we might, call it a tenderness the ceremonious terms
were soon dropped; and because the speakers would have been obliged
to use those ceremonious terms, if they had spoken each other's
names,