Lady Etherton paused whilst the baronet broke the seal; the letter contained only three lines. Stunned, incapable of uttering a word, he stood bewildered, confused, and powerless. Recovering her nerves, Lady Etherton advanced, and, with a look of contempt, took the note from her husband’s hands, and cast her eyes upon the lines; the next moment she uttered a faint exclamation, and fell back upon a chair, with difficulty keeping herself from fainting. The words which caused this acute sensation of suffering in husband and wife were as follows:—
“I am so confounded, Sir Howard, that I can scarcely write the words. The Bank of Brabazon, Brassington, and Blinkiron has stopped payment; lose not a moment in coming up to town.
“Yours obediently,
“D. C. Stripem.”
CHAPTER XLII.
As soon as Lieutenant Thornton arrived in Plymouth with the Virginie and Vengeance, his first care, after the usual formalities had been gone through, was to get Commander O’Loughlin and Lieutenant Pole on shore, both being so far recovered as to bear moving; and the physician who was consulted on their reaching Plymouth, decided that they should be immediately removed into the country, declaring that a few weeks would completely restore them.
Captain O’Loughlin wrote immediately to his betrothed, Agatha, and made as light of his wounds as possible. He would not allow his friend to remain longer with him; he was able to move about with a crutch, and the surgeon assured him he would not have the least lameness in a month. Lieutenant Pole was also fast recovering.
Excessively anxious concerning Madame Coulancourt and his beloved Mabel, whom he still hoped had safely reached England, Lieutenant Thornton and his friend Julian Arden prepared to leave Plymouth for London, feeling assured that if the party he was so anxious about had reached England, he would surely hear of them there. But Julian Arden, before he left Plymouth, was destined to suffer a severe and stunning misfortune.
To his extreme alarm, he heard a rumour that agitated him greatly. Lieutenant-General Packenham was to have been Governor of Plymouth, but the alarming illness of his eldest daughter, brought on by exposure, it was said, to the pestiferous climate of Sierra Leone, had obliged him to decline the post, and to leave England for some months’ residence in Madeira. This was all he could learn in Plymouth, but it caused him great agony of mind. He feared his betrothed had imbibed the seeds of that fatal fever which raged at the time of their meeting; and became doubly anxious to reach London, where he hoped to hear intelligence from the General’s solicitor, whose address he had.
Need we paint the joy and rapture of the lovers when they met? Many of our fair readers, no doubt, have experienced the same—felt the like intensity only once in life. To those who have not, we can only say we trust it is before them. From joy to sorrow is but a step. Poor Julian Arden learned, with feelings impossible to describe, that General Pakenham’s daughter had died in Madeira, and that her distracted father was remaining there for his own health, to recover from the terrible shock at losing his beloved child.