een, she had been admired, she had been loved:
who that saw her would not admire and love? and he was the victim of her
pique, perhaps of her despair.

But she was not yet married. They were, according to these lines, to be
soon united. It appeared they had travelled together; that thought gave
him a pang. Could he not see her? Could he not explain all? Could he not
prove that his heart had ever been true and fond? Could he not tell her
all that had happened, all that he had suffered, all the madness of his
misery; and could she resist that voice whose accents had once been her
joy, that glance which had once filled her heart with rapture? And when
she found that Ferdinand, her own Ferdinand, had indeed never deceived
her, was worthy of her choice affection, and suffering even at this
moment for her sweet sake, what were all the cold-blooded ties in which
she had since involved herself? She was his by an older and more ardent
bond. Should he not claim his right? Could she deny it?

Claim what? The hand of an heiress. Should it be said that an Armine
came crouching for lucre, where he ought to have commanded for love?
Never! Whatever she might think, his conduct had been faultless to her.
It was not for Henrietta to complain. She was not the victim, if one
indeed there might chance to be. He had loved her, she had returned his
passion; for her sake he had made the greatest of sacrifices, forfeited
a splendid inheritance, and a fond and faithful heart. When he had
thought of her before, pining perhaps in some foreign solitude, he
had never ceased reproaching himself for his conduct, and had accused
himself of deception and cruelty; but now, in this moment of her flush
prosperity, 'esteemed one of the richest heiresses in England' (he
ground his teeth as he recalled that phrase), and the affianced bride
of a great noble (his old companion, Lord Montfort, too; what a strange
thing is life!), proud, smiling, and prosperous, while he was alone,
with a broken heart and worse than desperate fortunes, and all for her
sake, his soul became bitter: he reproached her with want of feeling;
he pictured her as void of genuine sensibility; he dilated on her
indifference since they had parted; her silence, so strange, now no
longer inexplicable; the total want of interest she had exhibited as to
his career; he sneered at the lightness of her temperament; he cursed
her caprice; he denounced her infernal treachery; in the distorted
phant