She stopt, affrighted, for Mr. Tyrold frowned. A frown upon a face so constantly benign, was new, was awful to her; but she instantly recollected his condemnation of wishes so desperate, and fearfully taking his hand, besought his forgiveness.
His brow instantly resumed its serenity. 'I have nothing,' said he, 'my dearest child, to forgive, from the moment you recollect yourself. But try, for your own sake, to keep in mind, that the current sorrows, however acute, of current life, are but uselessly aggravated by vain wishes for death. The smallest kind office better proves affection than any words, however elevated.'
The conference here broke up; something incomprehensible seemed to Mr. Tyrold to be blended with the grief of Camilla; and though from her birth she had manifested, by every opportunity, the most liberal disregard of wealth, the something not to be understood seemed always to have money for its object. What this might be, he now fervently wished to explore; yet still hoped, by patient kindness, to receive her confidence voluntarily.
Camilla now was half dead; Lavinia could with difficulty sustain, but by no possible means revive her. What a period was this to disclose to her Father that she must deprive him, in part, even of his promised solace in his intended assistance to his brother, to satisfy debts of which he suspected not the existence!
When forced down stairs, by a summons to supper, Mr. Tyrold, to console her for his momentary displeasure, redoubled his caresses; but his tenderness only made her weep yet more bitterly, and he looked at her with a heart rent with anguish. For Lavinia, for Eugenia, he would have felt similar grief; but their far less gay, though equally innocent natures, would have made the view of their affliction less strikingly oppressive. Camilla had, hitherto, seemed in the spring of joy yet more than of life. Anxiety flew at her approach, and animation took its place. Nothing could shake his resignation; yet to behold her constant sadness, severely tried his fortitude. To see tears trickling incessantly down the pale cheeks so lately blooming; to see her youthful countenance wear the haggard expression of care; to see life, in its wish and purposes seem at an end, 'ere, in its ordinary calculation, it was reckoned to have begun, drew him from every other consideration, and filled his whole mind with monopolizing apprehension.
He now himself pressed her, for change of scene, to accept an invitation she had received from Mrs. Berlinton to Grosvenor Square, whither Indiana was going in a few days, to spend a fortnight or three weeks before her marriage. But she declined the excursion, as not more unseasonable in its expence, than ungenial to her feelings.
The following morning, while they were at their melancholy breakfast, a letter arrived from Lisbon, which Mr. Tyrold read with visible disturbance, exclaiming, from time to time, 'Lionel, thou art indeed punished!'
The sisters were equally alarmed, but Lavinia alone could make any enquiry.
Mr. Tyrold then informed them, their uncle Relvil had just acknowledged to their Mother, that he could no longer, in justice, conceal that, previously to his quitting England, he had privately married his house-keeper, to induce her to accompany him in his voyage: and that, during his first wrath upon the detection of Lionel, he had disinherited him in favour of a little boy of her own, by a former marriage, whom they had brought with them to Lisbon.