'My Lord,' answered Delamere, recollecting himself, 'I mean not to trouble you on this matter. I have some business to adjust with Mr. Fitz-Edward; and since he is not here, have only to request of your Lordship information when he returns, or whither a letter may follow him?'
'Sir,' returned Lord Clancarryl with great gravity, 'I believe I can answer for Colonel Fitz-Edward's readiness to settle any business you may desire to adjust with him; and I wish, since there is business between ye, that I could name the time when you are likely to meet him. All, however, I can decidedly say is, that he intends going to Paris, but that his stay in France will not exceed five or six weeks in the whole; and that such letters as I may have occasion to send, are to be addressed to the care of Monsieur de Guisnon, banker, at Paris.'
Delamere having received this intelligence, took a cold leave; and Lord Clancarryl, who had before heard much of his impetuous temper and defective education, was piqued at his distant manner, and returned to his house in the country without making any farther effort to cultivate his friendship.
Debating whether he should follow Fitz-Edward to France or wait his return to Ireland, Delamere remained, torn with jealousy and distracted by delay. He was convinced beyond a doubt, that Fitz-Edward had met Emmeline in France by her own appointment. 'But let them not,' cried he—'let them not hope to escape me! Let them not suppose I will relinquish my purpose 'till I have punished their infamy or cease to feel it!—Oh, Emmeline! Emmeline! is it for this I pursued—for this I won thee!'
The violence of those emotions he felt after Lord Clancarryl's departure, subsided only because he had no one to listen to, no one to answer him. He determined, as Lord Clancarryl seemed so certain of his brother's return in the course of six weeks, to wait in Ireland 'till the end of that period, since there was but little probability of his meeting him if he pursued him to France. He concluded that wherever Emmeline was, Fitz-Edward might be found also; but the residence of Emmeline he knew not, nor could he bear a moment to think that he might see them together.
The violence of his resentment, far from declining, seemed to resist all the checks it's gratification received, and to burn with accumulated fury. His nights brought only tormenting dreams; his days only a repetition of unavailing anguish.
He had several acquaintances among young men of fashion at Dublin. With them he sometimes associated; and tried to forget his uneasiness in the pleasures of the table; and sometimes he shunned them entirely, and shut himself up to indulge his disquiet.
In the mean time, Lady Clancarryl was extremely mortified at the account her husband gave her of Delamere's behaviour. She knew that her brother, Lord Westhaven, would be highly gratified by any attention shewn to the family of his wife; particularly to a brother to whom Lady Westhaven was so much attached. She therefore entreated her Lord to overlook Delamere's petulance, and renew the invitation he had given him to Lough Carryl. But his Lordship, disgusted with the reception he had before met with, laughed, and desired her to try whether her civilities would be more graciously accepted. Lady Clancarryl therefore took the trouble to go herself to Dublin: where she so pressingly insisted on Delamere's passing a fortnight with them, that he could not evade the invitation without declaring his animosity against Fitz-Edward, and his resolution to demand satisfaction—a declaration which could not fail of rendering his purpose abortive. He returned, therefore, to Lough Carryl with her Ladyship; meaning to stay only a few days, and feeling hurt at being thus compelled to become the inmate of a family into which he might so soon carry grief and resentment.
Godolphin, after his return to the Isle of Wight, abandoned himself more than ever to the indulgence of his passion. He soothed yet encreased his melancholy by poetry and music; and Lady Adelina for some time contributed to nourish feelings too much in unison with her own. He now no longer affected to conceal from her his attachment to her lovely friend; but to her only it was known. Her voice, and exquisite taste, he loved to employ in singing the verses he made; and he would sit hours by her piano forté to hear repeated one of the many sonnets he had written on her who occupied all his thoughts.
SONNET