'Thus, my dearest Emmeline, I have punctually related all you appear so anxious to know, on which I leave you to reflect. My mother now sees my brother every day; but he has desired that nothing may be said of the past; and their conversations are short and melancholy. Fitz-Edward has left London; and Frederic told me, last night, that as soon as the physicians pronounce my mother entirely out of danger, he shall go down to you. Ah! my lovely friend! what a trial will his be! But I know you will encourage and support him in the task, however painful, of fulfilling the promise he has given; and my father, who praises you incessantly, says he is sure of it.
Adieu! my dear Miss Mowbray!
your affectionate and attached,
Augusta Delamere.'Berkley-Square, March 3.
A few days after the receipt of this letter, Delamere went down to Tylehurst. Dejection was visibly marked in his air and countenance; and all that Emmeline could say to strengthen his resolution, served only to make him feel greater reluctance. To quit her for twelve months, to leave her exposed to the solicitation of rivals who would not fail to surround her, and to hazard losing her for ever, seemed so terrible to his imagination, that the nearer the period of his promised departure grew, the more impossible he thought it to depart.
His ardent imagination seemed to be employed only in figuring the variety of circumstances which might in that interval arise to separate them for ever; and he magnified these possibilities, till he persuaded himself that nothing but a private marriage could secure her. As he saw how anxious she was that he should strictly adhere to the promises he had given his father, he thought that he might induce her to consent to this expedient, as the only one by which he could reconcile his duty and his love. He therefore took an opportunity, when he had by the bitterness of his complaints softened her into tears, to entreat, to implore her to consent to marry him before he went. He urged, that as Lord and Lady Montreville had both consented to their union at the end of the year, if he remained in the same mind, it made in fact no difference to them; because he was very sure that his inclinations would not change, and no doubt could arise but from herself. If therefore she determined then to be his, she might as well consent to become so immediately as to hazard the difficulties which might arise to their marriage hereafter.
Emmeline, tho' extremely affected by his sorrow, had still resolution enough to treat this argument as feeble sophistry, unworthy of him and of herself; and positively to refuse her consent to an engagement which militated against all her assurances to Lord Montreville.
This decisive rejection of a plan, to which, from the tender pity she testified, he believed he should persuade her to assent, threw him into one of those transports of agonizing passion which he could neither conceal or contend with. He wept; he raved like a madman. He swore he would return to his father and revoke his promise; and the endeavours of Mrs. Stafford and Emmeline to calm his mind seemed only to encrease the emotions with which it was torn.
After having exhausted every mode of persuasion in vain, he was obliged to relinquish the hope of a secret marriage, and to attempt to obtain another concession, in which he at length succeeded. He told Emmeline, that if she had no wish to quit him entirely, but really meant to reward his long and ardent affection, she could not object to bind herself to become his wife immediately on his return to England.
Emmeline made every objection she could to this request. But she only objected; for she saw him so hurt, that she had not the resolution to wound him anew by a positive refusal. Mrs. Stafford too, moved by his grief and despair, no longer supported her in her reserve; and as their steadiness seemed to give way his eagerness and importunity encreased, till they allowed him to draw up a promise in these words—'At the end of the term prescribed by Lord Montreville, Emmeline Mowbray hereby promises to become the wife of Frederic Delamere.'
This, Emmeline signed with a reluctant and trembling hand; for tho' she had an habitual friendship and affection for Delamere, and preferred him to all the men she had yet seen, she thought this not strictly right; and felt a pain and repugnance to it's performance, which made her more unhappy the longer she reflected on it.
On Delamere, however, it had a contrary effect. Tho' he still continued greatly depressed at the thoughts of their approaching separation, he yet assumed some degree of courage to bear it: and when the day arrived, he bid her adieu without relapsing into those agonies he had suffered before at the mere idea of it.