All that had so lately passed upon her person and appearance being full upon her mind, she involuntarily shrunk back, hiding her face with her cloak.
Bellamy, by no means conceiving this mark of emotion to be unfavourable, steadied his horse, by leaning one hand on the coach-window, and said, in a yet lower voice—'O, Madam! is it possible you can hate me so barbarously?—will you not even deign to look at me, though I have so long been banished from your presence?'
Eugenia, during this speech, called to mind, that though new, in some measure, to herself, she was not so to this gentleman, and ventured to uncover her face; when the grief painted on the fine features of Bellamy, so forcibly touched her, that she softly answered—'No, Sir, indeed I do not hate you; I am incapable of such ingratitude; but I conjure—I beseech you to forget me!'
'Forget you?—O, Madam! you command an impossibility!—No, I am constancy itself, and not all the world united shall tear you from my heart!'
Jacob, who caught a word or two, now rode up to the other window, and as Eugenia began—'Conquer, Sir, I entreat you, this ill-fated partiality!—' told her the horses had been hard-worked, and must go home.
As Jacob was the oracle of Sir Hugh about his horses, his will was prescriptive law: Eugenia never disputed it, and only saying—'Think of me, Sir, no more!' bid the coachman drive on.
Bellamy, respectfully submitting, continued, with his hat in his hand, as the maid informed her mistress, looking after the carriage till it was out of sight.
A tender sorrow now stole upon the just revived tranquillity of the gentle and generous Eugenia. 'Ah!' thought she, 'I have rendered, little as I seem worthy of such power, I have rendered this amiable man miserable, though possibly, and probably, he is the only man in existence whom I could render happy!—Ah! how may I dare expect from Clermont a similar passion?'
Molly Mill, a very young girl, and daughter of a poor tenant of Sir Hugh, interrupted these reflections from time to time, with remarks upon their object. 'Dearee me, Miss,' she cried, 'what a fine gentleman that was!—he sighed like to split his heart when you said, don't think about me no more. He's some loveyer, like, I'm sure.'
Eugenia returned home so much moved by this incident, that Sir Hugh, believing his brother himself had failed to revive her, was disturbed all anew with acute contrition for her disasters, and feeling very unwell, went to bed before supper time.