'Patiently, therefore,' continued Mr. Tyrold, 'we must bear, what vainly we should combat, and bow down to those calamities of which the purpose is hidden, nor fancy no good is answered, because none is obvious. Man develops but little, though he experiences much. The time will come for his greater diffusion of knowledge; let him meet it without dread, by using worthily his actual portion. I resign myself, therefore, with reverence to this blow; though none yet has struck so hardly at my heart. We must now do what we can for this victim to her own purity, by seeking means to secure her future independence, and by bettering—if possible!—her betrayer. What a daughter, what a sister, what a friend, has her family thus lost! How will your poor Mother receive such killing tidings! Misfortune, sickness, and poverty, she has heroism to endure; but innocence oppressed through its own artlessness, and inexperience duped by villainy, will shake her utmost firmness, and harass into disorder her, as yet, unbroken powers of encountering adversity. Alas!—no evils that visited the early years of this loved child, have proved to her so grievous as the large fortune with which they were followed! We repined, my Camilla, at the deprivation you sustained at that period.—We owe to it, perhaps, that you have not as treacherously been betrayed!
'How has the opening promise of our Eugenia more than answered our fondest expectations! Her knowledge is still less uncommon than her simplicity, her philosophy for herself than her zeal in the service of others. She is singular with sweetness, peculiar, yet not impracticable; generous without parade, and wise without consciousness. Yet now, so sacrificed seems all,—that I dwell upon her excellencies as if enumerating them over her tomb!'
A letter from Lavinia contained some further particulars. Their Father, she said, finding the poor victim resolute, meant to spare Sir Hugh all that was possible of the detestable craft of Bellamy; and Eugenia was already struggling to recover her natural serenity, that she might appear before him without endangering his own. Bellamy talked of nothing but love and rapture; yet the unsuspicious Eugenia was the only person he deceived; for so little from the heart seemed either his looks or his expressions, that it was palpable he was acting a part, to all who believed it possible words and thoughts could be divided.
A postscript to this letter was added by Eugenia herself.
'Ah, my Camilla!... where now are all our sweet promised participations? But let me not talk of myself; nor do you, my affectionate sister, dwell upon me at this period. One thing I undertook shall yet be performed; the moment I am able to go to Cleves, I will deliver, through Lavinia, what I mentioned. Does anything else remain that is yet in my power? Tell me, my Camilla, and think but with what joy you will give joy again to your
Eugenia.'
Broken hearted over these letters, Camilla spent her time in their perpetual perusal, in wiping from them her tears, and pressing with fond anguish to her lips the signature of her hapless sister, self-beguiled by her own credulous goodness, and self-devoted by her conscientious scruples.
CHAPTER III
The Progress of Dissipation
Mr. Clykes, by the promised payment and reward, being for the present appeased, Camilla still admitted some hope of waiting a more favourable moment for her cruel confession. She received, also, a little, though mournful, reprieve from terror, by a letter from Lisbon, written to again postpone the return of Mrs. Tyrold, at the earnest request of Mr. Relvil; and she flattered herself that, before her arrival, she should be enabled to resume those only duties which could draw her from despondence. She lived, meanwhile, wholly shut up from all company, consigned to penitence for her indiscretions, to grief for the fate of her sister, and to wasting regret of her own causelessly lost felicity.