“Fool!—­fool!” And then, in a moment, his voice changed from indignation to the bitterest self-reproach.

“And fool I; thrice fool!  Who am I, to rail on him?  Oh God! what have I done?” And he covered his face with his hands.

“What have you done?” literally shrieked Valencia.

“Nothing that you or man can blame, Miss St. Just!  Can you dream that, sinful as I am, I could ever harbour a thought toward her of which I should be ashamed before the angels of God?”

He looked up as he spoke, with an utter humility and an intense honesty, which unnerved her at once.

“Oh, my Saint Pere!” and she held out both her hands.  “Forgive me, if—­ only for a moment—­”

“I am not your Saint Pere, nor any one’s!  I am a poor, weak, conceited, miserable man, who by his accursed impertinence has broken the heart of the being whom he loves best on earth.”

Valencia started:  but ere she could ask for an explanation, he rejoined wildly—­

“How is she?  Tell me only that, this once!  Has it killed her?  Does she hate him?”

“Adores him more than ever.  Oh, Major Campbell! it is too piteous, too piteous.”

He covered his face with his hands, shuddering.  “Thank God! yes, thank God!  So it should be.  Let her love him to the last, and win her martyr’s crown!  Now, Valencia St. Just, sit down, if but for five minutes; and listen, once for all, to the last words, perhaps, you will ever hear me speak; unless she wants you—?”

“No, no!  Tell me all, Saint Pere!” said Valencia, “for I am walking in a dream—­a double dream!” as the new thought of Headley, and that walk, came over her.  “Tell me all at once, while I have wits left to comprehend.”

“Miss St. Just,” said he, in a clear calm voice, “it is fit, for her honour and for mine, that you should know all.  The first day that I ever saw your sister, I loved her; as a man loves who can never cease to love, or love a second time.  I was a raw awkward Scotchman then, and she used to laugh at me.  Why not?  I kept my secret, and determined to become a man at whom no one would wish to laugh.  I was in the Company’s service then.  You recollect her jesting once about the Indian army, and my commanding black people, and saying that the Line only was fit for—­some girl’s jest?”

“No; I recollect nothing of it.”

“I never forgot it.  I threw up all my prospects, and went into the Line.  Whether I won honour there or not I need not tell you.  I came back to England years after, not unworthy, as I fancied, to look your sister in the face as an equal.  I found her married.”

He paused a little, and then went on, in a quiet, business-like tone.