'I knew him,' answered she, faultering as she spoke, 'at Bath.'
'And is he,' enquired Lady Westhaven, 'so very charming as his brother and his family represent him?'
'He is indeed very agreeable,' replied she—'very much so. Extremely pleasant in his manner, and in his person very like Lord Westhaven.'
'He never told us how he first became acquainted with you; and to tell you the truth Emmeline, if I had not thought, indeed known, that you was engaged to Lord Delamere, I should have thought Godolphin your lover.'
This speech did not serve to hasten the composure Emmeline was trying to regain. She attempted to laugh it off; but succeeded so ill, that Lady Westhaven rejoined her Lord and Mr. and Mrs. Stafford, full of uneasy conjectures; and Emmeline, with a still more heavy heart, soon after followed her.
The pressing and earnest invitation of Mrs. Stafford, induced her guests to promise her their company for some days. But Lady Westhaven was so astonished at her brother's desertion of Emmeline, and so desirous of accounting for it without finding occasion to impute cruelty and caprice to him, or imprudence and levity to Emmeline, that she took the earliest opportunity of asking Mrs. Stafford, with whom she knew Miss Mowbray had no secrets, to explain to her the cause of an event so contrary to her expectations.
Mrs. Stafford had heard from Emmeline the embarrassment into which the questions of Lady Westhaven had thrown her; and with great difficulty at length persuaded her, that she owed it to her own character and her own peace to suffer her Ladyship to be acquainted with the truth: that she could run no risk in telling her what, for the sake of her Lord (whose happiness might be disturbed, and whose life hazarded by it's knowledge) she certainly would not reveal. Besides which motives to secresy, the gentleness and humanity of Lady Westhaven would, Mrs. Stafford said, be alone sufficient to secure Lady Adelina from any possible ill consequences by her being made acquainted with the unhappy story.
These arguments wrung from Emmeline a reluctant acquiescence: and Mrs. Stafford related to Lady Westhaven those events which had been followed by Delamere's jealousy and their separation.
The love and regard, which on her first knowledge of Emmeline Lady Westhaven had conceived for her, and which her admirable qualities had ever since encreased, was now raised to enthusiasm. She knew not (for Mrs. Stafford and Emmeline were themselves ignorant) of the artful misrepresentations with which the Crofts' had poisoned the mind of her brother; and was therefore astonished at his suspicions and grieved at his rashness. She immediately proposed writing to him; but this design both her friends besought her for the present to relinquish. Emmeline assured her that she had so long considered the affair as totally at an end, that she could not now regret it; or if she felt any regret, it was merely in resigning the hope of being received into a family of which Lady Westhaven was a part. Her Ladyship could not however believe that Emmeline was really indifferent to her brother; and accounted for her present coldness by supposing her piqued and offended at his behaviour, for which she had so much reason.
Anxious therefore to reconcile them, she still continued desirous of writing to Delamere. And so much did her affectionate heart dwell on the happiness she should have in re-uniting her brother and her friend, that only the difficulty which there seemed to be in vindicating Emmeline without injuring Lady Adelina, withheld her; and she promised to delay writing 'till means could be found to clear up the reputation of the one without ruining that of the other.