About half an hour, which seemed to be prolonged to twenty times the duration of the whole day, passed in terrible expectation; Edgar then appeared, and Eugenia, suspending her earnest curiosity, to comply with the acute feelings of her sister, retreated.
Camilla could scarce breathe; she stood up, her eyes and mouth open, her face pale, her hands uplifted, waiting, but not daring to demand intelligence.
Edgar, entering into her distress with a tenderness that drove from him his own, eagerly satisfied her: 'All,' he cried, 'is safe; the affair has been compromised; no duel has taken place; and the parties have mutually pledged themselves to forget the dispute.'
Tears again, but no longer bitter, flowed copiously down her cheeks, while her raised eyes and clasped hands expressed the fervency of her thankfulness.
Edgar, extremely touched, took her hand; he wished to seize a moment so nearly awful, to enforce upon her mind every serious subject with which he most desired it to be impressed; but sorrow was ever sacred to him; and desiring only, at this period, to console her: 'This adventure,' he cried, 'has now terminated so well, you must not suffer it to wound you. Dismiss it, sweet Camilla, from your memory!... at least till you are more composed.'
'No, sir!' cried Camilla, to whom his softness, by restoring her hope of an ultimately happy conclusion, restored strength; 'it ought never to be dismissed from my memory; and what I am now going to say will fix it there indelibly.'
Edgar was surprised, but pleased; his most anxious wishes seemed on the point of being fulfilled; he expected a voluntary explanation of every perplexity, a clearance of all mystery.
'I am sensible that I have appeared to you,' she resumed, 'in many points reprehensible; in some, perhaps, inexcusable....'
'Inexcusable? O no! never! never!'
'The letters of Sir Sedley Clarendel I know you think I ought not to have received....'