"Conceive yourself, my dear Lord Albert, united to a person of this character, however amiable in herself, with your talents, with your views, which are" (and she looked at him steadily as she spoke) "tinctured with ambition. With your temper and your tastes for the elegancies of life, how would you brook a wife who was praying and singing psalms all day long? who would consider all your actions, when not in accordance with her own, as so many positive sins, and whose moments, such at least as were spared from the offices of her enthusiasm, would be passed in the cottages of your tenants, and in making baby-linen for every expected increase in their families.
"Now let me beseech you, and believe me to speak from the most disinterested feelings, that when you meet Lady Adeline, you will not betray yourself into a too hasty arrangement for your union. See her—see her, by all means. Judge for yourself; use your own eyes, hear with your own ears, and be the arbiter of your own cause, but do nothing rashly. Time is necessary for all decisions in momentous questions; and what can be more momentous, and in what is there more at stake, than in an union for life? Can too much deliberation be given to the subject? Alas! I know, from my own fatal experience, what misery must ensue where no tastes, no principles, no objects exist in common between those united. I owe to this cause a great portion of my present unhappiness; for the misery I endured, and the constant efforts I made to bear up against the tenfold wretchedness of my marriage with Lord Hamlet Vernon, impaired my intellectual powers, and prevented my turning the energies of my mind to any useful or profitable purpose. Hence I have become what I am, dependant on the resources of the hour, to enable me to pass through life with any thing like composure."
Lord Albert had listened with feelings which it would be impossible to describe to all that had fallen from Lady Hamlet Vernon; and in the emotion, which her communication and her entreaties produced, he could find no words for utterance, no answer to her appeals. He was like one dumb, and deprived of sense; and he stood for some moments rooted to the spot when the voice of his counsellor had ceased.
"See her! yes, I will see my Adeline," he at length said in a deep agonized tone, as if communing with himself. "Yes, I will see her."
"Lord Albert, I entreat you, I implore you," cried Lady Hamlet Vernon, with an emotion that made her words quiver on her lips, "I beseech you forgive me, if"—the window of the library was at this moment thrown hastily up; and Lord Albert D'Esterre heard his name called by Lord Ellersby, who held in his hand a letter.
"D'Esterre," said he, "here are your letters." Lord Albert hastened forward mechanically to receive them, and one he gazed upon more intently than the rest, as he looked them over—it was from Adeline.
Who is there who has not recognised, even in its peculiar folding, the letter of a beloved object? and whose heart has not throbbed with delight ere even the seal were broken? Such was the emotion of Lord Albert, awoke up from the paralyzing influence of Lady Hamlet Vernon's communication to new life by the letter he now pressed to his bosom; and regardless of what had passed, he hastened to his room, and read as follows:—
"Dearest:—My mother has been gradually growing worse and worse these two months, and I have persuaded her to go to town for a consultation of her physicians.
"It is so long since I have heard from you, Albert, it is painful for me to write, scarcely knowing how far you may be interested in what I have to communicate—but I try to still my uneasiness—let me but see you, dear Albert, all will be forgotten, all will be forgiven; for I am your own true and affectionate
"Adeline."
"P.S. You will find us at Mamma's house in town."
A letter like this, breathing such trust and love, and so replete with genuine expression of delight in the prospect of meeting him, was indeed sufficient to make Lord Albert forget at once the poisonous theme which his ears rather than his reason had imbibed in his interview with Lady Hamlet. Impelled more by the eager anxiety of affection to behold the object of his late disquietude, than to see her for the purpose of convincing himself of her errors, he leapt with alacrity into his carriage, and drove towards London, without casting a thought on those he left behind.
The mortification which Lady Hamlet Vernon felt was severe, in proportion as from its nature it admitted of no sympathy. She was, of course, ignorant of the cause of Lord Albert's destination being so suddenly changed from Wales to London; but in the blindness of her increasing passion, she resolved in the first moment of her despair to follow him thither. A cooler judgment, however, made her recollect that if she lost Lord Albert she had other friends to retain, a position in the gay world to lose, and that, at all events, it was not by pursuing him at that moment that any thing was to be gained; she therefore determined on remaining some days at Restormel, and making herself as agreeable as possible to the party that continued there. To one of Lady Hamlet Vernon's disposition this was no easy task. Violent and impetuous as she was by nature, left as she had been without any control, it was a very Herculean work to hide all the warring passions of jealousy and disappointed love beneath the semblance of a cool indifference—a disengaged mind.