'Rise, dear madam, and compose yourself. If you mean a Lady whom this minute I have passed, and whose countenance so much resembles yours, that I thought her at once some near relation, she is just gone from this house.'
'Thank Heaven! thank Heaven!' again ejaculated the prostrate Camilla; 'My Mother is spared a little longer the dreadful sight of all she must now most abominate upon earth!'
She then begged Lady Isabella instantly to order the chaise, and return to town.
'On the contrary,' answered her Ladyship, extremely surprised at so wild a request, 'Let me rather, myself, carry you to your family.'
'O no, Lady Isabella, no!' cried Camilla, speaking with frightful rapidity, and shaking in every limb, 'all now is changed. I came to wait upon my Father—to humble myself at his feet—not to obtrude myself upon my Mother!—O Lady Isabella!—I shall have broken her heart—and I dare not offend her with my sight!'
Lady Isabella, with the most judicious gentleness, endeavoured to render her more reasonable. 'I pretend not,' she said, 'to decide upon your situation, though I comprehend its general affliction: yet still, and at all events, its termination must be a meeting. Suffer me, therefore, rather to hasten than retard so right a measure. Allow of my mediation, and give me the infinite pleasure of leaving you in the hands of your friends.'
Camilla, though scarcely able to articulate her words, declared again the motive to her journey was at an end; that her Father had now one to watch, soothe, and attend him, who had none of her dreadful drawbacks to consoling powers; and that she would remain at Mrs. Berlinton's till summoned home by their immediate commands.
Lady Isabella began pleading their own rights to decide if or not the meeting should be deferred: but wildly interrupting her, 'You know not,' she cried, 'what it is you ask. I have not nerves, I have not hardiness to force myself into such a presence. An injured Father ... an offended Mother ... O Lady Isabella! if you knew how I adore—and how I have ruined them!...'
'Let me go to them from you, myself; let me represent your situation. They are now probably together. That Lady whom I saw but from the stairs, though her countenance so much struck me, and whom I now conclude to be Mrs. Tyrold, said, as she passed, I shall walk; I only want a guide;'—
'They had not, then, even met!' cried Camilla, starting up with fresh horrour; 'she is but just arrived—has but just been at Etherington—and there heard—that her husband was in prison—and in prison for the debts of her daughter! her guilty ... perhaps reprobated daughter!'—