'Then you have forgotten your Caroline, forgotten the kind Murden who hazarded so much to save you?'
'No,' replied Miss Valmont, 'I never forgot any one.'
She took her hand from my arm, and lifted both hands to her forehead. She stood immoveable in deep musing for some time. 'Take me to the castle!' at length she exclaimed, without changing her posture or looking at any person. 'Bid Mr. Valmont provide a dungeon where I can die. I will not go to the wood! Oh, no! nor to my chamber!' She groaned and started.—'For whom is it that you weep, thus?' she asked, abruptly turning round to Miss Ashburn.
'For my Sibella.'
She bent forward; and gazed intently in Miss Ashburn's face, as if in search of something.
'It is Caroline!' said she, drawing back. Spreading her arms wide, she looked down upon herself: 'Sibella!'—then, every muscle of her face convulsed with anguish, she bent her eyes upon the door—'and that was Clement!—Oh!'
In short, Walter, a thousand tender touches followed which wrung my heart to pity—while that——woman had the insolence and brutality to call herself Montgomery's wife. But Sibella did not understand her, or if she did, 'twas nothing. His look, his tones had completed the work, and her mind could feel nothing beyond. Other dreadful agonies followed, but under the suffering of those she was patience itself. She was conveyed to her friend's chamber; and in three hours delivered of a dead child.
I waited the result alone in Miss Ashburn's library, canvassing over all the exquisite concern I had in producing such misery to this injured Sibella. Had I been buried in a quick sand on the road to Hipsley, her noble minded Caroline and the tender Murden might by due preparation have robbed Clement's perfidy of half its sting. But to come upon her thus, to hurl her down such a precipice from the felicity of her expectations—Oh, no wonder her life should be in danger! And think, Walter, what I must have felt when they came to tell me so.
In such a moment, who could palliate? Not, I indeed! I did not conceal from Miss Ashburn an atom of the truth; and she talked like an angel, for she not only told me I should amend but taught me how to amend.
One little satisfaction, indeed, visited me under that roof. I saw Janetta Laundy disgracefully dismissed. She it was, I doubt not, that made this match to satisfy her own grasping avarice by Montgomery's folly. Would you believe that she had so far imposed on the credulity of Mrs. Ashburn that she dared sneer at my assertions? Luckily, I had some letters in my pocket-book lately written by her to me, and such proofs could neither be denied nor parried. As the letters pretty fully displayed the commerce with Montgomery, Mrs. Ashburn poured on her a torrent of abuses; but scarcely had Janetta withdrawn when she complained that her daughter had made her house odious to her, had brought a rival to insult her; and finally she ordered a servant to enquire if Mr. Montgomery would attend her to the opera. Mr. Montgomery was no where to be found.