From being the victim of her generous
disposition, I could not save her; I can protect her from the shafts of
malice.'
'She has no passion for play?' inquired the duke.
'She nourishes a passion for the man for whom she bled, to the exclusion
of the other passions. She lives, and I believe I may say that it is the
motive of her rising and dressing daily, in expectation of his advent.'
'He may be dead.'
'The dog is alive. And he has not ceased to be Handsome Caseldy, they
say. Between ourselves, duke, there is matter to break her heart. He
has been the Count Caseldy of Continental gaming tables, and he is
recently Sir Martin Caseldy, settled on the estate she made him free to
take up intact on his father's decease.'
'Pah! a villain!'
'With a blacker brand upon him every morning that he looks forth across
his property, and leaves her to languish! She still--I say it to the
redemption of our sex--has offers. Her incomparable attractions of mind
and person exercise the natural empire of beauty. But she will none of
them. I call her the Fair Suicide. She has died for love; and she is a
ghost, a good ghost, and a pleasing ghost, but an apparition, a taper.
The duke fidgeted, and expressed a hope to hear that she was not of
melancholy conversation; and again, that the subject of her discourse
was not confined to love and lovers, happy or unhappy. He wished his
duchess, he said, to be entertained upon gayer topics: love being a theme
he desired to reserve to himself.
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