'Hear me, hear me, Miss Mowbray!' exclaimed Colonel Mordaunt, almost as much agitated as herself: 'by heaven I meant not to insult you! and perhaps I—perhaps I have been misinformed—No! Yes, yes, it must be so; your indignation proves that I have—You are, no doubt—and on my knees I implore your pardon—you are the wife of Mr Glenmurray.'
'And suppose I am not his wife,' cried Adeline, 'is it then given to a wife only to be secure from being insulted by offers horrible to the delicacy, and wounding to the sensibility, like those which I have heard from you?' But before Colonel Mordaunt could reply, Adeline's thoughts had reverted to what he had said of Glenmurray's certain danger; and, unable to bear this confirmation of her fears, with the speed of phrensy she ran towards home, and did not stop till she was in sight of her lodging, and the still closed curtain of her apartment met her view.
'He is still sleeping, then,' she exclaimed, 'and I have time to recover myself, and endeavour to hide from him the emotion of which I could not tell the reason.' So saying, she softly entered the house, and by the time Glenmurray rose she had regained her composure. Still there was a look of anxiety on her fine countenance, which could not escape the penetrating eye of love.
'Why are you so grave this morning?' said Glenmurray, as Adeline seated herself at the breakfast table:—'I feel much better and more cheerful to-day.'
'But are you, indeed, better?' replied Adeline, fixing her tearful eyes on him.
'Or I much deceive myself,' said Glenmurray.
'Thank Heaven!' devoutly replied Adeline. 'I thought—I thought—' Here tears choked her utterance, and Glenmurray drew from her a confession of her anxious fears for him, though she prudently resolved not to agitate him by telling him of the rencontre with Colonel Mordaunt.
But when the continued assurances of Glenmurray that he was better, and the animation of his countenance, had in a degree removed her fears for his life, she had leisure to revert to another source of uneasiness, and to dwell on the insult which she had experienced from Colonel Mordaunt's offer of protection.
'How strange and irrational,' thought Adeline, 'are the prejudices of society! Because an idle ceremony has not been muttered over me at the altar, I am liable to be thought a woman of vicious inclinations, and to be exposed to the most daring insults.'
As these reflections occurred to her, she could scarcely help regretting that her principles would not allow her delicacy and virtue to be placed under the sacred shelter bestowed by that ceremony which she was pleased to call idle. And she was not long without experiencing still further hardships from the situation in which she had persisted so obstinately to remain. Their establishment consisted of a footman and a maid servant; but the latter had of late been so remiss in the performance of her duties, and so impertinent when reproved for her faults, that Adeline was obliged to give her warning.