"Do not leave me--oh, do not leave me in anger!" cried Virginia, clinging to him. "Not trust you!--I!--not trust you! Oh, what _can_ you mean? I have no confessions to make! Mrs. Ormond knows every thought of my mind, and so shall you, if you will only hear me. I do not know who this man is, I a.s.sure you; nor where he is to be found."

"And yet you love him? Can you love a man whom you do not know, Virginia?"

"I only love his figure, I believe," said Virginia.

"His figure!"

"Indeed I am quite bewildered," said Virginia, looking round wildly; "I know not what I feel."

"If you permitted this man to kneel to you, to kiss your hand, surely you must know that you love him, Virginia?"

"But that was only in a dream; and Mrs. Ormond said----"

"Only a dream! But you met him at Mrs. Smith's, in the New Forest?"

"That was only a picture."

"Only a picture!--but you have seen the original?"

"Never--never in my life; and I wish to Heaven I had never, never seen the fatal picture! the image haunts me day and night. When I read of heroes in the day, that figure rises to my view, instead of yours. When I go to sleep at night, I see it, instead of yours, in my dreams; it speaks to me, it kneels to me. I long ago told Mrs. Ormond this, but she laughed at me. I told her of that frightful dream. I saw you weltering in your blood; I tried to save you, but could not. I heard you say, 'Perfidious, ungrateful Virginia! you are the cause of my death!' Oh, it was the most dreadful night I ever pa.s.sed! Still this figure, this picture, was before me; and he was the knight of the white plumes; and it was he who stabbed you; but when I wished him to be victorious, I did not know that he was fighting against you. So Mrs. Ormond told me that I need not blame myself; and she said that you were not so foolish as to be jealous of a picture; but I knew you would be displeased--I knew you would think me ungrateful--I knew you would never forgive me."

Whilst Virginia rapidly uttered all this, Clarence marked the wild animation of her eyes, the sudden changes of her countenance; he recollected her father's insanity; every feeling of his mind gave way to terror and pity; he approached her with all the calmness that he could a.s.sume, took both her hands, and holding them in his, said, in a soothing voice--

"My dear Virginia, you are not ungrateful. I do not think you so. I am not displeased with you. You have done nothing to displease me. Compose yourself, dear Virginia."

"I am quite composed, now you again call me dear Virginia. Only I am afraid, as I always told Mrs. Ormond, that I do not love you _enough_; but she said that I did, and that my fear was the strongest proof of my affection."

Virginia now spoke in so consistent a manner that Clarence could not doubt that she was in the clear possession of her understanding. She repeated to him all that she had said to Mrs. Ormond; and he began to hope that, without any intention to deceive, Mrs. Ormond's ignorance of the human heart led her into a belief that Virginia was in love with him; whilst, in fact, her imagination, exalted by solitude and romance, embodied and became enamoured of a phantom.

"I always told Mrs. Ormond that she was mistaken," said Clarence.

"I never believed that you loved me, Virginia, till--(he paused and carefully examined her countenance)--till you yourself gave me reason to think so. Was it only a principle of grat.i.tude, then, that dictated your answer to my letter?"

She looked irresolute: and at last, in a low voice, said, "If I could see, if I could speak to Mrs. Ormond------"

"She cannot tell what are the secret feelings of your heart, Virginia.

Consult no Mrs. Ormond. Consult no human creature but yourself."

"But Mrs. Ormond told me that you loved me, and that you had educated me to be your wife."

Mr. Hervey made an involuntary exclamation against Mrs. Ormond's folly.

"How, then, can you be happy," continued Virginia, "if I am so ungrateful as to say I do not love you? That I do not _love_ you!--Oh!

_that_ I cannot say; for I do love you better than any one living except my father, and with the same sort of affection that I feel for him.

You ask me to tell you the secret feelings of my heart: the only secret feeling of which I am conscious is--a wish not to marry, unless I could see in reality such a person as----But that I knew was only a picture, a dream; and I thought that I ought at least to sacrifice my foolish imaginations to you, who have done so much for me. I knew that it would be the height of ingrat.i.tude to refuse you; and besides, my father told me that you would not accept of my fortune without my hand, so I consented to marry you: forgive me, if these were wrong motives--I thought them right. Only tell me what I can do to make you happy, as I am sure I wish to do; to that wish I would sacrifice every other feeling."

"Sacrifice nothing, dear Virginia. We may both be happy without making any sacrifice of our feelings," cried Clarence. And, transported at regaining his own freedom, Virginia's simplicity never appeared to him so charming as at this moment. "Dearest Virginia, forgive me for suspecting you for one instant of any thing unhandsome. Mrs. Ormond, with the very best intentions possible, has led us both to the brink of misery. But I find you such as I always thought you, ingenuous, affectionate, innocent."

"And you are not angry with me?" interrupted Virginia, with joyful eagerness; "and you will not think me ungrateful? And you will not be unhappy? And Mrs. Ormond was mistaken? And you do not wish that I should _love_ you, that I should be your wife, I mean? Oh, don't deceive me, for I cannot help believing whatever you say."

Clarence Hervey, to give her a convincing proof that Mrs. Ormond had misled her as to his sentiments, immediately avowed his pa.s.sion for Belinda.

"You have relieved me from all doubt, all fear, all anxiety," said Virginia, with the sweetest expression of innocent affection in her countenance. "May you be as happy as you deserve to be! May Belinda--is not that her name?--May Belinda--"

At this moment Lady Delacour half opened the door, exclaiming--"Human patience can wait no longer!"

"Will you trust me to explain for you, dear Virginia?" said Clarence.

"Most willingly," said Virginia, retiring as Lady Delacour advanced.

"Pray leave me here alone, whilst you, who are used to talk before strangers, speak for me."

"Dare you venture, Clarence," said her ladyship, as she closed the door, "to leave her alone with that picture? You are no lover, if you be not jealous."

"I am not jealous," said Clarence, "yet I am a lover--a pa.s.sionate lover."

"A pa.s.sionate lover!" cried Lady Delacour, stopping short as they were crossing the antechamber:--"then I have done nothing but mischief. In love with Virginia? I will not--cannot believe it."

"In love with Belinda!--Cannot you, will not you believe it?"

"My dear Clarence, I never doubted it for an instant. But are you at liberty to own it to any body but me?"

"I am at liberty to declare it to all the world."

"You transport me with joy! I will not keep you from her a second. But stay--I am sorry to tell you, that, as she informed me this morning, _her heart is not at present inclined to love_. And here is Mrs.

Margaret Delacour, poor wretch, in this room, dying with curiosity.

Curiosity is as ardent as love, and has as good a claim to compa.s.sion."

As he entered the room, where there were only Mrs. Margaret Delacour and Belinda, Clarence Hervey's first glance, rapid as it was, explained his heart.

Belinda put her arm within Lady Delacour's, trembling so that she could scarcely stand. Lady Delacour pressed her hand, and was perfectly silent.

"And what is Miss Portman to believe," cried Mrs. Margaret Delacour, "when she has seen you on the very eve of marriage with another lady?"

"The strongest merit I can plead with such a woman as Miss Portman is, that I was ready to sacrifice my own happiness to a sense of duty. Now that I am at liberty----"

"Now that you are at liberty," interrupted Lady Delacour, "you are in a vast hurry to offer your whole soul to a lady, who has for months seen all your merits with perfect insensibility, and who has been, notwithstanding all my operations, stone blind to your love."

"The struggles of my pa.s.sion cannot totally have escaped Belinda's penetration," said Clarence; "but I like her a thousand times the better for not having trusted merely to appearances. That love is most to be valued which cannot be easily won. In my opinion there is a prodigious difference between a warm imagination and a warm heart."

"Well," said Lady Delacour, "we have all of us seen _Pamela maritata_--let us now see _Belinda in love_, if that be possible. _If!_ forgive me this last stroke, my dear--in spite of all my raillery, I do believe that the prudent Belinda is more capable of feeling real permanent pa.s.sion than any of the dear sentimental young ladies, whose motto is

'All for love, or the world well lost.'"

"That is just my opinion," said Mrs. Margaret Delacour.

"But pray, what is become of Mr. Hartley?" looking round: "I do not see him."

"No: for I have hid him," said Lady Delacour: "he shall be forthcoming presently."

"Dear Mr. Clarence Hervey, what have you done with my Virginia?" said Mrs. Ormond, coming into the room.