at my marriage, it shall not
be at yours; but if man can do it, I swear a day shall come when there
shall be a feast in your house, and you shall be proud to wear them. I
say no more now; put aside these words, and lock away yonder box until
the day when I shall remind you of both. All I pray of you now is, to
wait and to remember."

"You are going out of the country?" says Beatrix, in some agitation.

"Yes, to-morrow," says Esmond.

"To Lorraine, cousin?" says Beatrix, laying her hand on his arm; 'twas
the hand on which she wore the Duke's bracelet. "Stay, Harry!" continued
she, with a tone that had more despondency in it than she was accustomed
to show. "Hear a last word. I do love you. I do admire you--who would
not, that has known such love as yours has been for us all? But I think
I have no heart; at least I have never seen the man that could touch it;
and, had I found him, I would have followed him in rags had he been a
private soldier, or to sea, like one of those buccaneers you used to
read to us about when we were children. I would do anything for such
a man, bear anything for him: but I never found one. You were ever too
much of a slave to win my heart; even my Lord Duke could not command it.
I had not been happy had I married him. I knew that three months after
our engagement--and was too vain to break it. Oh, Harry! I cried once or
twice, not for him, but with tears of rage because I could not be sorry
for him. I was frightened to find I was glad of his death; and were
I joined to you, I should have the same sense of servitude, the same
longing to escape. We should both be unhappy, and you the most, who are
as jealous as the Duke was himself. I tried to love him; I tried, indeed
I did: affected gladness when he came: submitted to hear when he was by
me, and tried the wife's part I thought I was to play for the rest of my
days. But half an hour of that complaisance wearied me, and what would
a lifetime be? My thoughts were away when he was speaking; and I was
thinking, Oh that this man would drop my hand, and rise up from before
my feet! I knew his great and noble qualities, greater and nobler than
mine a thousand times, as yours are, cousin, I tell you, a million and a
million times better. But 'twas not for these I took him. I took him to
have a great place in the world, and I lost it. I lost it, and do not
deplore him--and I often thought, as I listened to his fond vows and
ardent words, Oh, if I yield t