Then, again, he pondered upon the wildness of her grief—the delirious anguish which she had shown at several stages of their interview—her solemn avowal of love for him alone—and her voluntary assurance that she should be happy and proud to call him her husband. He moreover reflected upon the steadiness of her character—her aversion to the frivolities of the fashionable world—her apparent candour of disposition—and her total want of any thing approaching to coquetry;—and he endeavoured to persuade himself that he had acted harshly by leaving her in anger.
"Yet what alternative had I?" he asked himself; "and would not any other man have in the same way cut short an interview of so mysterious and unsatisfactory—so perplexing and humiliating a nature?"
Alas! the Earl of Ellingham found himself the very next minute dwelling with an aching and compassionate heart upon the agonised state in which he had left the being whom he so tenderly loved:—he thought of her fascinating beauty—her bewitching manners—her well-cultivated mind—her amiable disposition;—and then he said within himself, "Oh! if I have indeed lost her, I have lost an angel!"
He had reached the immediate vicinity of Hatchett's Hotel, when he turned back with the resolution of seeking another interview with Georgiana.
But scarcely had he retraced ten steps of the way, ere he stopped short, and asked himself what advantage could be gained by such a proceeding?
"The decision is given," he reasoned: "she can never—never be mine! Wherefore should I renew her grief and my humiliation—evoke fresh tears from her eyes, and add sharpness to the sting of my disappointment? No: it may not be! Some terrible mystery shrouds her conduct from my penetration;—but shall I, who am defeated in love, give way to a base sentiment of curiosity? It would be unmanly—ignoble—cowardly to attempt to extort her secret from her,—for a profound secret she doubtless cherishes—a secret which has this evening influenced her conduct! And perhaps," he thought, following the natural channel of his meditations, "that secret is of a nature which a modest woman could not reveal to one of the opposite sex?"
This idea, suddenly flashing across his brain, suggested a proceeding which, after a few minutes of profound reflection, he determined to adopt.
Passing rapidly up Dover Street, Lord Ellingham entered Grafton Street, where he knocked at a door on which was a brass-plate engraved with the name of Dr. Lascelles.
The physician was at home; and the nobleman was immediately ushered into a parlour, where he was shortly joined by the individual whom he sought.
Dr. Lascelles was a short, thin, sallow-faced man of about fifty. He had small, restless, sparkling eyes, a prim mouth, and an intelligent though by no means prepossessing countenance. He was devoted to the art which he practised, and was reputed the most scientific man of the whole faculty. His anatomical researches had been prosecuted with an energy and a perseverance which afforded occupation to half the resurrection-men in London, and more than once to the doctor's own personal danger in respect to the law. It was whispered in well-informed circles that he never hesitated to encounter any peril in order to possess himself of the corpse of a person who died of an unusual malady. His devotion to anatomy had materially blunted his feelings and deadened the kinder sympathies of his nature; but his immense talents, added to a reputation acquired by several wonderful cures, rendered him the most fashionable physician of the day.