Jack paused a moment, and leaning forward eagerly, Grey said: "Yes, you asked her to marry you, and she consented?"
"No; oh, no" Jack groaned, "If she had, she might not now have been dead; my Bessie, whom I loved so much. She refused me, and worst of all, she told me she was plighted to Neil, her cousin."
"To Neil! Bessie plighted to Neil! That is impossible, for he is to marry Blanche Trevellian, so everybody says," Grey exclaimed, conscious of a keener pang than he had experienced when he thought Jack his rival.
"And everybody is right," Jack replied: "he will marry Blanche, but he was engaged to Bessie under the promise of strictest secrecy until his mother, who had threatened to disinherit him, was reconciled, or he found something which would support him without any effort on his part, Neil McPherson would never exert himself, or deny himself either, even for the woman he loved, and, Grey, I speak the truth when I tell you that I would rather know that Bessie was dead than to see her Neil's wife."
Grey did not answer, but something in the pallor of his face and the expression of his eyes, struck Jack suddenly, and stretching his hand across the table he said, very low and very sadly: "Jerrold, you loved her, too. I see it in your face."
"Yes," Grey answered him, "I loved her, too, and would have given years of my life to have saved her, though not for Neil. Better far as it is--better for her, I mean, though our lives are wrecked; at least, mine is; but for you there may still be a happy future, and on the ashes of the dead love a new one may arise to bless you."
"Never!" Jack answered, emphatically; then after a moment, as if his thoughts had followed Grey's, he asked: "Do you know how long Mrs. Meredith intends remaining in Rome, or where she expects to go after leaving there?"
Grey replied that he did not, while a faint smile played round his mouth, as he looked at his friend, who detected the smile, and comprehending its meaning, said, with a heightened color: "I know you are thinking of Flossie. Bessie thought of her, too, and asked why I did not marry her. But that will never be, though, she is as bright and beautiful an Irish lassie as ever gladdened the eyes of man and the castle is so lonesome without her buzzing about and stirring up things generally, that I have serious thoughts of inviting her grandmother, to take up her abode there, so I can have Flossie back. The servants adore her. But she will never be my wife. She would tire and worry me to death with her restlessness and activity. When I lost Bessie I lost everything, and have nothing left but her memory--not even a flower which she has worn."