She begged the landlord to wait, and again read the letter of Lavinia, when, startled by what was said of abandoning herself to her feelings, she saw that her immediate duty was to state her situation to her parents. She desired, therefore, the chaise might be put up, and wrote these lines:
'I could not, unhappily, stay at Eugenia's; nor can I return to Mrs. Berlinton; I am now at the half-way-house where I shall wait for commands. My Lavinia will tell me what I may be ordered to do. I am ill,—and earnestly I pray with an illness from which I may rise no more. When my Father—my Mother, hear this, they will perhaps accord me to be blest again with their sight; the brevity of my career may, to their kindness, expiate its faults; they may pray for me where my own prayers may be too unsanctified to be heard; they may forgive me ... though my own forgiveness never more will quiet this breast! Heaven bless and preserve them; their unoffending daughters; and my ever loved uncle!
'Camilla Tyrold.'
She then rang the bell, and desired this note might go by express to Etherington.
But this, the waiter answered, was impossible; the horse on which the messenger had set out to Belfont, though it had only carried him the first stage, and brought him back the last, had galloped so hard, that his master would not send it out again the same day; and they had but that one.
She begged he would see instantly for some other conveyance.
The man who was come back from Belfont, he answered, would be glad to be discharged, as he wanted to go to rest.
She then took up the bill, and upon examining the sum total, found, with the express, the chaise in which she came the last stage, that which she ordered to take her to Etherington, and the expence of her residence, it amounted to half a crown beyond what she possessed.
She had only, she knew, to make herself known as the niece of Sir Hugh Tyrold, to be trusted by all the environs; but to expose herself in this helpless, and even pennyless state, appeared to her to be a degradation to every part of her family.
To enclose the bill to Etherington was to secure its being paid; but the sentence, Camilla most of all must now see the duties of œconomy, made her revolt from such a step.
All she still possessed of pecuniary value she had in her pocket: the seal of her Father, the ring of her Mother, the watch of her Uncle, and the locket of Edgar Mandlebert. With one of these she now determined to part, in preference to any new exposure at Etherington, or to incurring the smallest debt. She desired to be left alone, and took them from her pocket, one by one, painfully ruminating upon which she could bear to lose. 'It may not, she thought, be for long; for quick, I hope, my course will end!—yet even for an hour,—even for the last final moment—to give up such dear symbols of all that has made my happiness in life!—--'