At the kind wish upon her own opening prospects, Eugenia wept afresh; but when Camilla took the letter to press to her lips and her heart what he said of his sufferings, she perceived at the doubling down, two lines more:—
I am this moment leaving Southampton for the Isle of Wight, whence I shall sail to the first port, that the first vessel with which I may meet shall be bound.
'No, my dear Eugenia,' cried she, then colouring, and putting down the letter, 'your mediation will be spared. He acquaints us he is quitting England. He can only mention it to avoid the persecution of an answer. Certainly none shall be obtruded upon him.'
Eugenia pleaded that still a letter might overtake him at the Isle of Wight, and all misunderstanding might be rectified. 'And then, my sister, all may be well, and your happiness renewed.—It has not flown you—like that of Eugenia—from any radical cause. Her's is not only gone, past all resource, but has left behind it disgrace with sorrow, derision with disappointment!'
Camilla strove to soothe her, but would no longer listen to any mediation; she resolved, at once, to write of the separation to her father, and beseech him to send for her to Etherington, and never again suffer her to quit that roof, where alone her peace was without disturbance, her conduct without reproach. Even her debts, now, she felt equal to avowing, for as, far from contracting new ones, she meant in future to reside in complete obscurity, she hoped the feelings of this moment would procure pardon for her indiscretions, which her own sedulous future œconomy should be indefatigable to repair.
Eugenia would not strive longer against a procedure which she deemed dignified, and the departure of Camilla was hurried by a messenger, who brought word that the strange man, with the flapped hat, was returned, and entreated her, for Heaven's sake, to let him speak with her one moment.
Dead, now, to the hope she had entertained of this enquirer, she merely from his own urgency complied with his call; for her curiosity was gone since she now knew it could not be Edgar.
Edgar, indeed, was actually departed. His heart was loaded with sorrow, his prospect seemed black with despondence; but Camilla was lost to that perfect confidence, and unbounded esteem, he required to feel for his wife, and no tenderness without them, no partial good opinion, nor general admiration, could make him wish to lead her to the altar. 'No!' cried he, 'Dr. Marchmont; you judged me better than my first passion, and her untried steadiness enabled me to judge myself. Misery only could have followed my view of her in the mixt society in which the thousand accidents of life might occasionally have placed us. I can only be happy with a character as simple in the world, as in retirement; as artless at an assembly, as in a cottage. Without that heavenly simplicity, the union of all else that renders life desirable, were vain! without that—all her enchanting qualities, with which nothing can vie, and which are entwined around my heart-strings, were ineffectual to my peace.'
'You are right,' said the Doctor, 'and your timely caution, and early wisdom, will protect you from the bitterness of a personal experience like mine. With all the charms she assembles, her character seems too unstable for private domestic life. When a few years more have blunted the wild vivacity, the floating ambition, the changing propensities which now render her inconsistent to others, and fluctuating even to herself, she may yet become as respectable, as she must always be amiable. But now, ... whoever takes her from the circle in which she is playing, will see her lost to all gaiety, though without daring to complain, from the restraint of bidden duties, which make the bidder a tyrant.'