'A blessed hearing! replied Adeline.
'And you, my child, how are you?' asked the doctor affectionately.
'I know not yet,' answered Adeline mournfully: 'as yet I am stunned by the blow which I have received; but pray tell me what has passed between you and my mother since we left the hotel.'
'What has passed?' cried Dr Norberry, starting from his chair, taking two hasty strides across the room, pulling up the cape of his coat, and muttering an oath between his shut teeth—'Why, this passed:—The deluded woman renounced her daughter; and her friend, her old and faithful friend, has renounced her.'
'Oh! my poor mother!' exclaimed Adeline.
'Girl! girl! don't be foolish,' replied the doctor; 'keep your pity for more deserving objects; and, as the wisest thing you can do, endeavour to forget your mother.'
'Forget her! Never.'
'Well, well, you will be wiser in time; and now you shall hear all that passed. When she recovered entirely, and found that you were gone, she gave way to an agony of sorrow, such as I never before witnessed; for I believe that I never beheld before the agony of remorse.'
'My poor mother!' cried Adeline, again bursting into tears.
'What! again!' exclaimed the doctor. (Adeline motioned to him to go on, and he continued.) 'At sight of this, I was weak enough to pity her; and, with the greatest simplicity, I told her, that I was glad to see that she felt penitent for her conduct, since penitence paved the way to amendment; when, to my great surprise, all the vanished fierceness and haughtiness of her look returned, and she told me, that so far from repenting she approved of her conduct; and that remorse had no share in her sorrow; that she wept from consciousness of misery inflicted by the faults of others, not her own.'