’But you know—­you must—­you meant—­you, at least had heard some ill of me, and you no longer wish my suit to prosper.’

‘I have, indeed, of late, heard much ill of you, Captain Devereux,’ answered Dr. Walsingham, in a very deliberate but melancholy way, ’enough to make me hold you no meet husband for any wife who cared for a faithful partner, or an honourable and a quiet home.’

‘You mean—­I know you do—­that Palmerstown girl, who has belied me?’ cried Devereux.

’That unhappy young woman, Captain Devereux, her name is Glynn, whom you have betrayed under a promise of marriage.’

That moment Devereux was on his feet.  It was the apparition of Devereux; a blue fire gleaming in his eyes, not a word from his white lips, while three seconds might have ticked from Mrs. Irons’s prosy old clock on the stair-head; his slender hand was outstretched in appeal and defiance, and something half-celestial, half-infernal—­the fallen angelic—­in his whole face and bearing.

’May my merciful Creator strike me dead, here at your feet, Doctor Walsingham, but ‘tis a lie,’ cried he.  ’I never promised—­she’ll tell you.  I thought she told you long ago.  ’Twas that devil incarnate, her mother, who forged the lie, why or where-fore, except for her fiendish love of mischief, I know not.’

‘I cannot tell, Sir, about your promise,’ said the doctor gravely; ’with or without it, the crime is heinous, the cruelty immeasurable.’

‘Dr. Walsingham,’ cried Dick Devereux, a strange scorn ringing in his accents, ’with all your learning you don’t know the world; you don’t know human nature; you don’t see what’s passing in this very village before your eyes every day you live.  I’m not worse than others; I’m not half so bad as fifty older fellows who ought to know better; but I’m sorry, and ’tisn’t easy to say that, for I’m as proud, proud as the devil, proud as you; and if it were to my Maker, what more can I say?  I’m sorry, and if Heaven forgives us when we repent, I think our wretched fellow-mortals may.’

‘Captain Devereux, I’ve nothing to forgive,’ said the parson, kindly.

’But I tell you, Sir, this cruel, unmeaning separation will be my eternal ruin,’ cried Devereux.  ’Listen to me—­by Heaven, you shall.  I’ve fought a hard battle, Sir!  I’ve tried to forget her—­to hate her—­it won’t do.  I tell you, Dr. Walsingham, ’tis not in your nature to comprehend the intensity of my love—­you can’t.  I don’t blame you.  But I think, Sir—­I think I might make her like me, Sir.  They come at last, sometimes, to like those that love them so—­so desperately:  that may not be for me, ’tis true.  I only ask to plead my own sad cause.  I only want to see her—­gracious Heaven—­but to see her—­to show her how I was wronged—­to tell her she can make me what she will—­an honourable, pure, self-denying, devoted man, or leave me in the dark, alone, with nothing for it but to wrap my cloak about my head, and leap over the precipice.’