“Now, possibly, when you receive this, you will laugh at me for my fears: you will say I but echo back those which you indulged. But so sudden is the silence, so long the period of torturing suspense, that I must tremble till I receive one line from your dearest hand—one line to say that you are not offended with me. Remember that you are all on earth to me; and if I lose that for which I have paid so terrible a price, what then will be my fate!
“I dread that you should have involved yourself seriously. Alas! I dread for you a thousand things that I dare not say. My friend, we have been very wicked. It is myself alone I blame. On me, on me be the crime; but if my life could save you, how gladly would I give it up! Oh, cannot we yet repent! Act well, Glenarvon: be not in love with crime: indeed, indeed, I tremble for you. It is not inconstancy that I fear. Whatever your errors may be, whatever fate be mine, my heart cannot be severed from you. I shall, as you have often said, never cease to love; but, were I to see your ruin, ah, believe me, it would grieve me more than my own. I am nothing, a mere cypher: you might be all that is great and superior. Act rightly, then, my friend; and hear this counsel, though it comes from one as fallen as I am. Think not that I wish to repine, or that I lament the past. You have rendered me happy: it is not you that I accuse. But, now that you are gone, I look with horror upon my situation; and my crimes by night and by day appear unvarnished before me.
“I am frightened, Glenarvon: we have dared too much. I have followed you into a dark abyss; and now that you, my guide, my protector, have left my side, my former weakness returns, and all that one smile of yours could make me forget, oppresses and confounds me. The eye of God has marked me, and I sink at once. You will abandon me: that thought comprises all things in it. Therein lies the punishment of my crime; and God, they say, is just. The portrait which you have left with me has a stern look. Some have said that the likeness of a friend is preferable to himself, for that it ever smiles upon us; but with me it is the reverse. I never saw Glenarvon’s eyes gaze coldly on me till now. Farewell.
“Ever with respect and love,
“Your grateful, but unhappy friend,
“Calantha.”
Lady Avondale was more calm when she had thus written. The next morning a letter was placed in her hand. Her heart beat high. It was from Mortanville Priory:—but it was from Lady Trelawney, in answer to one she had sent her, and not from Glenarvon.
“Dearest cousin,” said Lady Trelawney, “I have not had time to write to you one word before. Of all the places I ever was at, this is the most perfectly delightful. Had I a spice in me of romance, I would attempt to describe it; but, in truth, I cannot. Tell Sophia we expect her for certain next week; and, if you wish to be diverted from all black thoughts, join our party. I received your gloomy letter after dinner. I was sitting on a couch by ——, shall I tell you by whom?—by Lord Glenarvon himself. At the moment in which it was delivered, for the post comes in here at nine in the evening, he smiled a little as he recognized the hand; and, when I told him you were ill, that smile became an incredulous laugh; for he knows well enough people are never so ill as they say. Witness himself: he is wonderfully recovered: indeed, he is grown perfectly delightful. I thought him uncommonly stupid all this summer, which I attribute now to you; for you encouraged him in his whims and woes. Here, at least, he is all life and good humour. Lady Augusta says he is not the same man; but sentiment, she affirms, undermines any constitution; and you are rather too much in that style.
“After all, my dear cousin, it is silly to make yourself unhappy about any man. I dare say you thought Lord Glenarvon very amiable: so do I:—and you fancied he was in love with you, as they call it; and I could fancy the same: and there is one here, I am sure, may fancy it as well as any of us: but it is so absurd to take these things seriously. It is his manner; and he owns himself that a grande passion bores him to death; and that if you will but leave him alone, he finds a little absence has entirely restored his senses.
“By the bye, did you give him ... but that is a secret. Only I much suspect that he has made over all that you have given him to another. Do the same by him, therefore; and have enough pride to shew him that you are not so weak and so much in his power as he imagines. I shall be quite provoked if you write any more to him. He shews all your letters: I tell you this as a friend: only, now, pray do not get me into a scrape, or repeat it.
“Do tell me when Lord Avondale returns. They say there has been a real rising in the north: but Trelawney thinks people make a great deal of nothing at all: he says, for his part, he believes it is all talk and nonsense. We are going to London, where I hope you will meet us. Good bye to you, dear coz. Write merrily, and as you used. My motto, you know, is, laugh whilst you can, and be grave when you must. I have written a long letter to my mother and Sophia; but do not ask to see it. Indeed, I would tell you all, if I were not afraid you’d be so foolish as to vex yourself about what cannot be helped.”
Lady Avondale did vex herself; and this letter from Frances made her mad. The punishment of crime was then at hand:—Glenarvon had betrayed, had abandoned her. Yet was it possible, or was it not the malice of Frances who wished to vex her? Calantha could not believe him false. He had not been to her as a common lover:—he was true: she felt assured he was; yet her agitation was very great. Perhaps he had been misled, and he feared to tell her. Could she be offended, because he had been weak? Oh, no! he knew she could not: he would never betray her secrets; he would never abandon her, because a newer favourite employed his momentary thoughts. She felt secure he would not, and she was calm.