"Tut, tut," cried Maddoc, "what matter such trifles as these at this time? And now," turning to their host, "if you will honor us?",
The old gentleman entered, not with his familiar deep-sea rolling gait, but slowly and wearily, and with an air of dejection. Lucy's dog welcomed him by barking and rushing at his shoe and trying to bite through it. Miss[Pg 202] Acton rose and sank in a curtsy which is to be seen in these days only on the stage, but her kindly heart quickened her gaze for anything that invited sympathy, and she immediately said: "Sir William, you are quite worn out. You need refreshment. Pray sit, pray sit! What will you take?",
"I feel that I am greatly to blame in this dreadful trouble," said Lucy. "I am sure that it was his love for me, his desire to gain me as[Pg 409] his wife, his horror at the prospect of being an outcast through debt, his resolution to lead an honest life and perhaps a noble life, should I become his wife and should he obtain your forgiveness; these things I am convinced drove him into a sort of madness in which he invented this desperate plot which could never be forgiven in any man who was not as brave and well-bred as Mr Lawrence, nor as—as——".
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