Oswald has treated you as a brother in the matter, telling
you everything, and this is the way you would repay him for his
confidence!"
"Can I help it, that I have learnt to love this girl?"
"Yes, sir,--you can help it. What if she had been Oswald's
wife;--would you have loved her then? Do you speak of loving a woman
as if it were an affair of fate, over which you have no control? I
doubt whether your passions are so strong as that. You had better put
aside your love for Miss Effingham. I feel assured that it will never
hurt you." Then some remembrance of what had passed between him and
Lady Laura Standish near the falls of the Linter, when he first
visited Scotland, came across his mind. "Believe me," she said with a
smile, "this little wound in your heart will soon be cured."
He stood silent before her, looking away from her, thinking over it
all. He certainly had believed himself to be violently in love with
Lady Laura, and yet when he had just now entered her drawing-room, he
had almost forgotten that there had been such a passage in his life.
And he had believed that she had forgotten it,--even though she
had counselled him not to come to Loughlinter within the last nine
months! He had been a boy then, and had not known himself;--but now
he was a man, and was proud of the intensity of his love.
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