After giving way, however, to the first ebullitions of anger against each other, mutual recrimination, and all those scorpion-like feelings which are the consequences of a copartnery in guilt, the sense of necessity to secure self-preservation, and to shield themselves from public ignominy, made them both catch eagerly at the terms of secrecy implied in the latter sentence of Lord Albert's letter; and when Lady Hamlet was convinced that there was no hope of regaining him to her views, she felt the necessity of submission, and sheltering herself under such terms as the exigency of the case required. All love was banished from her breast by feelings of rage and shame at her detection; and with the heartlessness of an intrigante, she determined to put bonne mine à mauvais jeu, and boldly deny a guilt which she knew could be but covertly imputed to her. She wrote an answer, therefore, on the instant, to Lord Albert, couched in terms such as the offended feelings of a haughty woman would dictate. In her turn she cast off Lord Albert—"one for whose happiness she avowed that she had been ready to sacrifice every thing. But now she found that the very measures she had taken from pure devotion to himself had been made matter of accusation against her; measures easily explained, if an explanation had been solicited. It was he who had sought her affections, not she his; and when he thus rudely rejected a heart which he had taken pains to win, she could not but feel that she had escaped from that irretrievable ruin which must have followed her union with him." Having thus endeavoured to turn the tide of recrimination against Lord Albert, the feeling which at the moment pressed most urgently upon her was, as in the case of all criminal confederacies, to rid herself of the insufferable presence of the partner of her crime; and therefore pressing upon him the draft which had been intended originally to remove him to the continent, she placed it in his hands for the same purpose now, and in a few hours afterwards he had embarked for Dieppe.
Lord Albert read Lady Hamlet Vernon's communication with calm indifference. His eyes were unsealed. He knew her character now too thoroughly to be surprised: still less was he to be shaken from his purpose; and was far more firmly resolved to pursue the right course than he had ever been to follow the wrong: and wretched as he was at heart, he found consolation in reflecting deeply on the merciful interposition of a higher power than any earthly one, which had thus snatched him from misery. Wretched as he was at heart, he found consolation; and with this feeling commenced the arduous task of bringing back his mind and heart to former principles of uprightness and virtue.
Lady Hamlet Vernon, on her part, took a different course. Sensible that to betray any feeling on the event would only draw down further remark and observation, she again plunged into the society from which she had of late withdrawn; and prolonging her stay at Brighton, avoided all those unpleasant circumstances which, for a time at least, would have attended her meeting Lord Albert in public.
Lord Albert D'Esterre had formed his resolution on a principle of rectitude, and acted upon it with that degree of promptitude which is the sure test of sincerity in well-doing. When the moment's exertion, however, was over, his mind, enfeebled from the lengthened moral disease under which it so long had laboured, shrunk back in conscious weakness: and he became sensible, that however earnest the will may be, the difficulty is great to retrace our steps from error; and that it is still more difficult to regain firm footing in the path of virtue, when we have wandered from it for any length of time.
The painful recollection of the hours he had lost, or more than lost, the conviction of the misuse of his intellectual faculties, pressed upon him with a leaden weight that seemed to defy all his efforts to recover the power and energy of his mind. That solitude of the heart, too, which was now in prospect before him, shed a gloom around; for, for whom was he to live? was the natural question which now suggested itself, and one not likely to meet a wise reply at the moment.
After-reflection, indeed, might tell him, that there is a higher motive to live to virtue, than any which this world's affections can afford; but to this nobler impulse he had unfortunately for the present become insensible, and in having become so he had lost the surest means of happiness. Lord Albert was, however, notwithstanding this sense of destitution, unwilling, for many reasons, to throw himself on the only stay left him—the supporting friendship of Lord Glenmore: partly, perhaps, from that averseness to humble himself in the sight of another, however dear, or however honourable, the individual may be, which it is so common to human nature to feel; and also from many mixed motives, alike of genuine good and spurious quality, which affect the purposes of all at some times and in some degree.
Lord Glenmore had in part heard and part guessed Lord Albert's rupture with Lady Hamlet Vernon, and secretly rejoiced in the event: but with the delicacy and kindliness of feeling which was his particular characteristic, he tacitly entered into the unhappiness of his friend; and thought, as he always did when he saw another fall into temptation's snare, that had he been tempted in as powerful a degree, he also might have fallen under the like condemnation.
Without, therefore, appearing to seek Lord Albert's confidence on the present occasion, Lord Glenmore showed him all the tender sympathy he entertained for him by a thousand nameless kind attentions; attentions which rekindled in Lord Albert's breast all his feelings of former friendship, and a sense of the value of that friend from whom of late he had been so entirely estranged. Gradually and imperceptibly they became once more reunited in their habits of intercourse, and Lord Albert's vacant hours were again devoted to Lord Glenmore's society. Little did the latter suspect that the time was drawing nigh, when he himself should require similar support and consolation to that which he was now affording Lord Albert. But thus it is:—we are all dependent beings one upon another; and they are wise who, by mutual good offices, lay up for themselves a store of kindness for the hours of perplexity and bereavement.
Several weeks had passed away, after Lord Glenmore's express wish for Lady Glenmore's return, before the latter quitted Paris. This delay arose not so much from a positive reluctance on her part to return home, as from that idle habit of living in the momentary excitement of frivolous pleasures which so much enervate the mind, and deaden the sense of virtuous affection. Lady Tenderden's character afforded no antidote to the bane of this growing evil; and Mr. Leslie Winyard, of course, still bent on the pursuit of Lady Glenmore, used all his endeavours to retard her stay in Paris as long as possible.
At length, however, the day of their departure came; and when she arrived in London, she was received in the arms of an affectionate and too confiding husband. Perhaps, on the first moment's reflection, brief as these moments were, Lady Glenmore felt in this cordial reception somewhat of self-reproof that her return had been so long unnecessarily deferred: but it is one of the concomitant evils of such a mode of life as hers was, that it is utterly impossible reflection should have any permanent seat in the mind; so that the natural checks of conscience, which at intervals will force themselves into view in hearts not quite hardened, become gradually smothered and suppressed, till at length they are wholly discarded.