'Immediately, I understand; I am told he has fitted up his house very elegantly for her reception.'
A deep sigh escaped Camilla at such publicity in the report and belief of the engagement of Edgar with her cousin, and brought with it a consciousness too strong for any further self-disguise, that her distress flowed not all from an unjust accusation: the sound alone of the union struck as a dagger at her heart, and told her, incontrovertibly, who was its master.
Her sensations were now most painful: she grew pale, she became sick, and was obliged, in her turn, to lean upon Eugenia, who, affrighted to see her thus strangely disordered, besought her to go back to the chaise.
She consented, and begged to pass a few minutes there alone. Eugenia therefore stayed without, walking slowly upon the bank.
Camilla, getting into the carriage, pulled up the blinds, and, no longer self-deceived, lamented in a new burst of sorrow, her unhappy fate, and unpropitious attachment.
This consciousness, however, became soon a call upon her integrity, and her regret was succeeded by a summons upon propriety. She gave herself up as lost to all personal felicity, but hoped she had discovered the tendency of her affliction, in time to avoid the dangers, and the errors to which it might lead. She determined to struggle without cessation for the conquest of a partiality she deemed it treachery to indulge; and to appease any pain she now blushed to have caused to Indiana, by strictly following the hard prescription of Miss Margland, and the obvious opinion of Eugenia, in shunning the society, and no longer coveting the approbation of Edgar. 'Such, my dear father,' she cried, 'would be your lesson, if I dared consult you! such, my most honoured mother, would be your conduct, if thus cruelly situated!'
This thought thrilled through every vein with pleasure, in a sense of filial desert, and her sole desire was to return immediately to those incomparable parents, under whose roof she had experienced nothing but happiness, and in whose bosoms she hoped to bury every tumultuous disturbance.
These ideas and resolutions, dejecting, yet solacing, occupied her to the forgetfulness of her intended visit, and even of Eugenia, till the words: 'Pray let me come to you, my dear Camilla!' made her let down the blinds.
She then perceived Mr. Bellamy earnestly addressing her sister.
He had advanced suddenly towards her, by a short cut from the paddock, of which she was not aware, when she was about twenty yards from the chaise.