But she had scarcely convinced herself that she was awake, when Mrs Selby, the mistress of the house, appeared at her bed-side, and, seeing what was passing in her mind by her countenance, explained to her as delicately as she could the situation in which she had been brought there.
'And who brought me hither?' replied Adeline, dreadfully agitated, as the remembrance of what had passed by degrees burst upon her.
'Colonel Mordaunt of the guards,' was the answer; and Adeline was shocked to find that he was the person to whom she was under so essential an obligation. She then hastily arose, being eager to return home; and in a short time she was ready to enter the drawing-room, and to express her thanks to Colonel Mordaunt.
But in vain did she insist on going home directly, to ease the fears of her family. The physician, who arrived at the moment, forbade her going out without having first taken both medicine and refreshment; and by the time that, after the most earnest entreaties, she obtained leave to depart, she recollected that, as her clothes were the same, she might still impart disease to her child, and therefore must on no account think of returning to Editha.
'Whither, whither then can I go?' cried she, forgetting she was not alone.
'Why not stay here?' said the colonel, who had been purposely left alone with her. 'O dearest of women! that you would but accept the protection of a man who adores you; who has long loved you; who has been so fortunate as to rescue you from a situation of misery and danger, and the study of whose life it shall be to make you happy.'
He uttered this with such volubility, that Adeline could not find an opportunity to interrupt him; but when he concluded, she calmly replied, 'I am willing to believe, Colonel Mordaunt, from a conversation which I once had with you, that you are not aware of the extent of the insult which you are now offering to me. You probably do not know that I have been for years a married woman?'
Colonel Mordaunt started and turned pale at this intelligence; and in a faltering voice replied, that he was indeed a stranger to her present situation;—for that, libertine as he confessed himself to be, he had never yet allowed himself to address the wife of another.
This speech restored him immediately to the confidence of Adeline. 'Then I hope,' cried she, holding out her hand to him, which in spite of his virtue he passionately kissed, 'that, as a friend, you will have the kindness to procure me a coach to take me to a lodging a few miles out of town, where I once was before; and that you will be so good as to drive directly to my lodgings, and let my poor maid know what is become of me. I dread to think,' added she bursting into tears, 'of the agony that my unaccountable absence must have occasioned her.'
The colonel, too seriously attached to Adeline to know yet what he wished, or what he hoped on this discovery of her situation, promised to obey her, provided she would allow him to call on her now and then; and Adeline was too full of gratitude to him for the service which he had rendered her, to have resolution enough to deny his request. He then called a coach for himself, and for Adeline, as she insisted on his going immediately to her lodgings; and also begged that he would tell the mulatto to send for advice, and prepare her little girl for inoculation directly.