untenance in calumny, succour in trouble!"

"It is a better duty to prevent the calumny and avert the trouble. Leave
aside Anne Ashleigh, a cipher that I can add or abstract from my sum
of life as I please. What is my duty to yourself? It is plain. It is to
tell you that your honour commands you to abandon all thoughts of Lilian
Ashleigh as your wife. Ungrateful that you are! Do you suppose it was no
mortification to my pride of woman and friend, that you never approached
me in confidence except to ask my good offices in promoting your
courtship to another; no shock to the quiet plans I had formed as to
our familiar though harmless intimacy, to hear that you were bent on a
marriage in which my friend would be lost to me?"

"Not lost! not lost! On the contrary, the regard I must suppose you had
for Lilian would have been a new link between our homes."

"Pooh! Between me and that dreamy girl there could have been no
sympathy, there could have grown up no regard. You would have been
chained to your fireside, and--and--but no matter. I stifled my
disappointment as soon as I felt it,--stifled it, as all my life I
have stifled that which either destiny or duty--duty to myself as to
others--forbids me to indulge. Ah, do not fancy me one of the weak
criminals who can suffer a worthy liking to grow into a debasing love! I
was not in love with you, Allen Fenwick."

"Do you think I was ever so presumptuous a coxcomb as to fancy it?"

"No," she said, more softly; "I was not so false to my household ties
and to my own nature. But there are some friendships which are as
jealous as love. I could have cheerfully aided you in any choice which
my sense could have approved for you as wise; I should have been pleased
to have found in such a wife my most intimate companion. But that silly
child!--absurd! Nevertheless, the freshness and enthusiasm of your love
touched me; you asked my aid, and I gave it. Perhaps I did believe
that when you saw more of Lilian Ashleigh you would be cured of a fancy
conceived by the eye--I should have known better what dupes the wisest
men can be to the witcheries of a fair face and eighteen! When I found
your illusion obstinate, I wrenched myself away from a vain regret,
turned to my own schemes and my own ambition, and smiled bitterly to
think that, in pressing you to propose so hastily to Lilian, I made your
blind passion an agent in my own plans. Enough of this. I speak thus
openly and boldly to you now