on may not go against me?" M. Grascour, as he said this, did throw
some look of passion into his face. "But I have spoken nothing as yet of
my own feelings."

"It is unnecessary."

This might be taken in either one of two senses; but the gentleman was
not sufficiently vain to think that the lady had intended to signify to
him that she would accept his love as a thing of which she could have no
doubt. "Ah, Miss Mountjoy," he continued, "if you would allow me to say
that since you have been at Brussels not a day has passed in which
mingled love and respect have not grown within my bosom. I have sat by
and watched while my excellent young friend Mr. Anderson has endeavored
to express his feelings. I have said to myself that I would bide my
time. If you could give yourself to him, why then the aspiration should
be quenched within my own breast. But you have not done so, though, as I
am aware, he has been assisted by my friend Sir Magnus. I have seen, and
have heard, and have said to myself at last, 'Now, too, my turn may
come.' I have loved much, but I have been very patient. Can it be that
my turn should have come at last?" Though he had spoken of Mr. Anderson,
he had not thought it expedient to say a word either of Captain
Scarborough or of Mr. Annesley. He knew quite as much of them as he did
of Mr. Anderson. He was clever, and had put together with absolute
correctness what Mrs. Mountjoy had told him, with other little facts
which had reached his ears.

"M. Grascour, I suppose I am very much obliged to you. I ought to be."
Here he bowed his head. "But my only way of being grateful is to tell
you the truth." Again he bowed his head. "I am in love with another man.
That's the truth." Here he shook his head with the smallest possible
shake, as though deprecating her love, but not doing so with any
harshness. "I engaged to marry him, too." There was another shake of the
head, somewhat more powerful. "And I intend to marry him." This she said
with much bold assurance. "All my old friends know that it is so, and
ought not to have sent you to me. I have given a promise to Harry
Annesley, and Harry Annesley alone can make me depart from it." This she
said in a low voice, but almost with violence, because there had come
another shake of the head in reply to her assurance that she meant to
marry Annesley. "And though he were to make me depart from it,--which he
will never do,--I should be just the same as regards anybody else.