"Why," said Mrs. Butler, "that woman, whose bed they were taking away from her when you noticed her last week, knows you, and has been malicious enough to tell all the room that you are a mere kept mistress with whom she should be ashamed to converse."
I threw on the stranger to whom I had given my very last pound a hasty and indignant glance, but, neither the expression nor the colour of anger would dwell on a cheek bloodless as mine, and I might apply to myself, what Sterne said of his poor old monk, that nature had done with its resentments.
"I never injured any of those women," reflected I, with meek resignation: "but God will be kinder to me and to my errors than they are!"
I offered all the little comforts in my power to Mrs. Butler, and then my health obliged me to take my leave. As I passed close to the woman into whose hands I had placed my pound-note, she smiled and curtsied affectedly. I fixed my sunk eyes, for an instant on her face, and then withdrew them, more in sorrow than in anger.
I lingered thus for about two months, without any visible change in my health or spirits, except that I grew weaker and thinner every day. All the kindness which could be administered to a mind diseased I received from my mother and sister Fanny.
About this time the Duke of Argyle arrived from Scotland. He was, no doubt, greatly shocked to see me so ill, although the cause of my melancholy state of mind being known to him, did not either flatter or interest him; more particularly as he had often himself remarked to me, that he wondered any woman alive could resist Lord Ponsonby.
I had always liked Argyle, and was glad to see him, and should have indeed found much consolation in his society, but that he loved to trifle with my distress, as it regarded Lord Ponsonby.
"I have just dined with Ponsonby," said Argyle to me one night, "and I never saw him look better. He showed me a letter, containing an invitation from that nasty sister of yours, Amy, who wanted to have me last year."
That way madness lies: I could not listen to another word. I was rushing past Argyle, when he detained me, frightened at the wildness of my looks.
"It is all a joke you credulous little fool," said he, running after me.