"I
wonder whether I may change the subject," said he, "and ask you a
word about yourself?"
"What word?" she said sharply.
"I have heard--"
"What have you heard?"
"Simply this,--that you are not now as you were six months ago. Your
marriage was then fixed for June."
"It has been unfixed since then," she said.
"Yes;--it has been unfixed. I know it. Miss Effingham, you will not
be angry with me if I say that when I heard it was so, something of a
hope,--no, I must not call it a hope,--something that longed to form
itself into hope returned to my breast, and from that hour to this
has been the only subject on which I have cared to think."
"Lord Chiltern is your friend, Mr. Finn?"
"He is so, and I do not think that I have ever been untrue to my
friendship for him."
"He says that no man has ever had a truer friend. He will swear to
that in all companies. And I, when it was allowed to me to swear with
him, swore it too. As his friend, let me tell you one thing,--one
thing which I would never tell to any other man,--one thing which I
know I may tell you in confidence. You are a gentleman, and will not
break my confidence?"
"I think I will not."
"I know you will not, because you are a gentleman. I told Lord
Chiltern in the autumn of last year that I loved him.
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