'What goodness is this! what encouragement to hope some indulgent intercession here—where the sense that now breaks in upon me of ungenerous ... ever to be lamented—and I had nearly said, execrated doubt, fills me with shame and regret—and makes me—even at this soft reviving, heart-restoring moment, feel undeserving my own hopes!'—
'Shall I ... may I leave him to make his peace?' whispered Mrs. Tyrold to her daughter, whose head sought concealment even to annihilation; but whose arms, with what force they possessed, detained her, uttering faintly but rapidly, 'O no, no, no!'
'My more than Mother!' again cried Edgar, 'I will wait till that felicity may be accorded me, and put myself wholly under your kind and powerful influence. One thing alone I must say;—I have too much to answer for, to take any share of the misdemeanors of another!—I have not been a treacherous listener, though a wilful obtruder.... See, Mrs. Tyrold! who placed me in that room—who is the accomplice of my happiness!'
With a smile that seemed to beam but the more brightly for her glistening eyes, Mrs. Tyrold looked to the door, and saw there, leaning against it, the form she most revered; surveying them all with an expression of satisfaction so perfect, contentment so benign, and pleasure mingled with so much thankfulness, that her tears now flowed fast from unrestrained delight; and Mr. Tyrold, approaching to press at once the two objects of his most exquisite tenderness to his breast, said, 'This surprise was not planned, but circumstances made it more than irresistible. It was not, however, quite fair to my Camilla, and if she is angry, we will be self-exiled till she can pardon us.'
'This is such a dream,'—cried Camilla, as now, first, from the voice of her Father she believed it reality; 'so incredible ... so unintelligible ... I find it entirely ... impossible ... impossible to comprehend any thing I see or hear!'—
'Let the past, ... not the present,' cried Edgar, 'be regarded as the dream! and generously drive it from your mind as a fever of the brain, with which reason had no share, and for which memory must find no place.'
'If I could understand in the least,' said Camilla, 'what this all means ... what——'
Mr. Tyrold now insisted that Edgar should retreat, while he made some explanation; and then related to his trembling, doubting, wondering daughter, the following circumstances.
In returning from Belfont, he had stopt at the half-way-house, where he had received from Mrs. Marl, a letter that, had it reached him as it was intended, at Etherington, would have quickened the general meeting, yet nearly have broken his heart. It was that which, for want of a messenger, had never been sent, and which Peggy, in cleaning the bed room, had found under a table, where it had fallen, she supposes, when the candle was put upon it for reading prayers.
'There was another letter, too!' interrupted Camilla, with quick blushing recollection;—'but my illness ... and all that has followed, made me forget them both till this very moment.... Did she say anything of any ... other?'