"Maltravers," said he, in a hurried tone, "it would be an idle compliment
to say that you are not likely to love in vain; perhaps it is indelicate
in me to apply a general remark; and yet--yet I cannot but fancy that I
have discovered your secret, and that you are not insensible to the
charms of Miss Cameron!"

"Legard!" said Maltravers,--and so strong was his fervent attachment to
Evelyn, that it swept away all his natural coldness and reserve,--"I tell
you plainly and frankly that in my love for Evelyn Cameron lie the last
hopes I have in life. I have no thought, no ambition, no sentiment that
is not vowed to her. If my love should be unreturned, I may strive to
endure the blow, I may mix with the world, I may seem to occupy myself in
the aims of others; but my heart will be broken! Let us talk of this no
more; you have surprised my secret, though it must have betrayed itself.
Learn from me how preternaturally strong, how generally fatal is love
deferred to that day when--in the stern growth of all the feelings--love
writes itself on granite!"

Maltravers, as if impatient of his own weakness, put spurs to his horse,
and they rode on rapidly for some time without speaking.

That silence was employed by Legard in meditating over all he had heard
and witnessed, in recalling all that he owed to Maltravers; and before
that silence was broken the young man nobly resolved not even to attempt,
not even to hope, a rivalry with Maltravers; to forego all the
expectations he had so fondly nursed, to absent himself from the company
of Evelyn, to requite faithfully and firmly that act of generosity to
which he owed the preservation of his life,--the redemption of his
honour.