He was no sooner gone, than she felt disposed to follow him and apologize for her having so coldly refused his offers of protection. Pride and timidity prevented her; but they could not stop her tears, which she was obliged to conceal by hurrying to her own room. Lady Westhaven soon after sent for her to a late breakfast: she found Lord Delamere there; but heard that Godolphin was gone.
Soon after breakfast, Lady Westhaven and her brother, (who could not yet obtain a clear intermission of the fever which hung about him, and who continued extremely weak,) went out together for an airing; and Lord Westhaven, unusually grave, was left reading in the room with Emmeline.
He laid down his book. 'So,' said he, 'William is flown away from us.'
It was a topic on which Emmeline did not care to trust her voice.
'I wish you could have determined to have gone with him.'
'I wish, my Lord, I could have reconciled it to my ideas of propriety; since certainly I should have been happy and safe in such an escort; and since, without any at all, I must, in a day or two, go.'
'I believe it will be best. Lord Delamere is no better; and Bellozane has no thought of leaving us entirely, tho' his military friends take up so much of his time that he is luckily less with Delamere. Lord Delamere has again, Miss Mowbray, been imploring me to apply to you. He wishes you only to hear him. He complains that you fly from him, and will not give him an opportunity of entering on his justification.'
'I am extremely concerned at Lord Delamere's unhappiness. But I must repeat that I require of his Lordship no justification; that I most sincerely forgive him if he supposes he has injured me; but that as to any proposals such as he once honoured me with, I am absolutely resolved never to listen to them; and I entreat him to believe that any future application on the subject must be entirely fruitless.'
'Poor young man!' said Lord Westhaven. 'However you must consent to see him alone, and to tell him so yourself; for from me he will not believe you so very inflexible—so very cruel.'
'I am inflexible, my Lord, but surely not cruel. The greatest cruelty of which I could be guilty, either to Lord Delamere or myself, would be to accept his offers, feeling as I feel, and thinking as I think.'