a right to be hurt, but not
to speak as he did. He lost his temper quite at last, and broke out
in the most frantic reproaches. He forgot all respect and even
gentlemanlike behaviour. Do you know he used words--words such as Barnes
uses sometimes when he is angry! and dared this language to me! I was
sorry till then, very sorry, and very much moved; but I know more than
ever, now, that I was right in refusing Lord Farintosh."

Dearest Laura now pressed for an account of all that had happened, which
may be briefly told as follows. Feeling very deeply upon the subject
which brought him to Miss Newcome, it was no wonder that Lord Farintosh
spoke at first in a way which moved her. He said he thought her letter
to his mother was very rightly written under the circumstances, and
thanked her for her generosity in offering to release him from his
engagement. But the affair--the painful circumstance of Highgate, and
that--which had happened in the Newcome family, was no fault of
Miss Newcome's, and Lord Farintosh could not think of holding her
accountable. His friends had long urged him to marry, and it was by
his mother's own wish that the engagement was formed, which he was
determined to maintain. In his course through the world (of which he was
getting very tired), he had never seen a woman, a lady who was so--you
understand, Ethel--whom he admired so much, who was likely to make
so good a wife for him as you are. "You allude," he continued, "to
differences we have had--and we have had them--but many of them, I own,
have been from my fault. I have been bred up in a way different to most
young men. I cannot help it if I have had temptations to which other men
are not exposed; and have been placed by--by Providence--in a high rank
of life; I am sure if you share it with me you will adorn it, and be in
every way worthy of it, and make me much better than I have been. If you
knew what a night of agony I passed after my mother read that letter to
me--I know you'd pity me, Ethel,--I know you would. The idea of losing
you makes me wild. My mother was dreadfully alarmed when she saw the
state I was in; so was the doctor--I assure you he was. And I had no
rest at all, and no peace of mind, until I determined to come down to
you; and say that I adored you, and you only; and that I would hold to
my engagement in spite of everything--and prove to you that--that no man
in the world could love you more sincerely than I do." Here the young