"Inestimable young man!" cried the countess, wiping the flowing tears from her eyes; "you teach misfortune dignity! Not when all Warsaw rose in a body to thank you, not when the king received you in the senate with open arms, could you have appeared to me so worthy of admiration as at this moment, when, conscious of having been all this, you submit to the direct reverse, because you believe it to be the will of your Maker! Ah! little does Miss Beaufort think, when seated by your side, that she is conversing with the youthful hero whom she has so often wished to see!"
"Miss Beaufort!" echoed Thaddeus, his heart glowing with delight. "Do you think she ever heard of me by the name of Sobieski?"
"Who has not?" returned the countess; "every heart that could be interested by heroic virtue has heard and well remembers its glorious struggles against the calamities of your country. Whilst the newspapers of the day informed us of these things, they noticed amongst the first of her champions the Palatine of Masovia, Kosciusko, and the young Sobieski. Many an evening have I passed with Miss Dorothy and Mary Beaufort, lamenting the fate of that devoted kingdom."
During this declaration, a variety of indeed happy emotions agitated the mind of Thaddeus, until, recollecting with a bitter pang the shameless ingratitude of Pembroke, when all those glories were departed from him, and the cruel possibility of being recognized by the Earl of Tinemouth as his son, he exclaimed, "My dearest madam, I entreat that what I have revealed to you may never be divulged. Miss Beaufort's friendship would indeed be happiness; but I cannot purchase even so great a bliss at the expense of memories which are knit with my life."
"How?" cried the countess; "is not your name, and all its attendant ideas, an honor which the proudest man might boast?"
Thaddeus pressed her hand to his heart.
"You are kind—very kind! yet I cannot retract. Confide, dear Lady Tinemouth, in the justice of my resolution. I could not bear cold pity; I could not bear the heartless comments of people who, pretending to compassion, would load me with a heavy sense of my calamities. Besides, there are persons in England who are so much the objects of my aversion, I would rather die than let them know I exist. Therefore, once again, dear Lady Tinemouth, let me implore you to preserve my secret."
She saw by the earnestness of his manner that she ought to comply, and without further hesitation promised all the silence he desired.
This long moonlight conversation, by awakening all those dormant remembrances which were cherished, though hidden in the depths of his bosom, gave birth to that mirage of imagination which painted that night, in the rapid series of his tumultuous dreams, the images of every being whom he had ever loved, or now continued to regard with interest.
Proceeding next morning towards Harley Street, he mused on what had happened; and pleased that he had, though unpremeditatedly, paid the just compliment of his entire confidence to the uncommon friendship of the countess, he arrived at Lady Dundas's door before he was sensible of the ground he had passed over, and in a few minutes afterwards was ushered into his accustomed purgatory.