Called to her sad self by this shock, of which she strove to repress the emotion, Camilla recollected her own 'almost blunted purpose[6],' and fearfully asked if their Mother were yet at Belfont.
'Ah, no!' she answered, clasping her hands, and leaning her head upon her sister's neck: 'She is gone!—The day before yesterday she was with me,—with me only for one hour!—yet to pass with her such another, I think, my dear Camilla, would soon lead me where I might learn a better philosophy than that I so vainly thought I had already acquired here!'
Camilla, struck with awe, ventured not even at an enquiry; and they both, for some little time, walked on in silence.
'Did she name to you,' at length, in broken accents, she asked, 'did she name to you, my Eugenia, ... the poor, banished ... Camilla?——'
'Banished? No. How banished?'
'She did not mention me?'
'No. She came to me but upon one subject. She failed in her purpose, ... and left me.'
A sigh that was nearly a groan finished this short little speech.
'Ah, Heaven! my Eugenia,' cried Camilla, now in agony unresisted, 'tell me, then, what passed! what new disappointment had my unhappy Mother to sustain? And how, and by what cruel fatality, has it fallen to your lot ... even to yours ... to suffer her wishes to fail?'
'You know nothing, then,' said Eugenia, after a pause, 'of her view—her errand hither?'