Thus, on the morrow after Lady Glenmore's arrival, the better though perhaps painful feelings with which she arose were not suffered long to maintain their ascendancy. The throng of inquirers and friends, and of désœuvré persons, who flocked around her, soon banished all reflection. The inquisitive, investigating spirit of a long morning's tête-à-tête with Lady Tilney, the empty nothingness of Lady Ellersby's converse; the worldly-mindedness of Lady De Chere, and the frivolity of all; with a subsequent soirée that closed the scene of her first recognizance in London; were circumstances well calculated to turn away Lady Glenmore from any salutary train of thought, which, if steadily entertained, might have led to a good result. She found even in Lord Albert's constant presence (for he now almost lived with Lord Glenmore) a secret satisfaction, a something of the continuation of that scattering of attention which had become habitual to her during her last four months' residence on the continent; and the circumstance of never being alone with her husband in the once happy privacy of domestic quiet, which some time previously she would have mourned over and regretted, was now an agreeable relief to her. What a fatal symptom it is of the state of the affections, when the presence of any third person is felt to be a relief, in the habitual intercourse of daily life between man and wife! It is a touchstone by which all married persons may try the condition of their hearts; and one by whose proof it is always well to abide, if any lurking evil is found to endanger happiness.
Although Lady Glenmore might not feel that there was much to hide in what had passed during her absence, and that many would have called her conduct, only living as others do who live in the world, yet her nature, originally, was so amiable and ingenuous, that she still reserved a place in her breast for that silent monitor which had never wholly left its station; and it told her that perhaps all that had been said, and done, and written, and permitted, would not have been agreeable to her husband. There are a thousand minor occurrences, which, when considered apart, are not of criminal nature; but which, when taken together, form a tremendous aggregate of danger, and which are most certainly detrimental to the purity of married love. If the sources of the heart are polluted, of what value is the nature of the virtue that is left?
Lady Glenmore certainly did feel that there were circumstances attendant on her séjour at Paris and at Spa which she would not relate to her husband; and she was happy to think Lord Albert's constant presence afforded a check to any but general allusions on the subject of her tour. Had Lord Glenmore been unoccupied with public affairs, or had he not been one whose own uprightness of heart and conduct shut out all suspicion of others, he might have observed that something of gêne in Lady Glenmore's manner rendered her different from what she had been. But, delighted to be once more with his wife; happy in her presence, and in the joyousness which her renovated health and beauty diffused around him; and frequently absorbed, besides, in those cares which abstract a man from many of those minute perceptions that idle people are alive to, he observed not the alteration in her manner.
Three days, however, after her return, a case addressed to Lord Glenmore at his office in Downing-street was forwarded from the custom-house at Dover. On the box being opened, it was found to contain a porte-feuille resembling those in which public papers are transmitted between official personages, and was stamped with a coronet, and with the initials G. G. The box itself was not fastened, and was accompanied by a note from one of the heads of the custom-house, stating, that it had been left at Dover some days back; and, from all accounts, by one of his lordship's servants in the hurry of departure, the initials on the box seeming to authorize the supposition. On the note being handed to Lord Glenmore by his secretary, he desired him to inspect the contents of the porte-feuille; and when informed that it seemed to contain papers of a private nature, Lord Glenmore desired to see it himself. He found it filled with letters addressed to Lady Glenmore, and amongst others, some which he recognised as being his own; and he was about to give orders that it should be sent to his house, concluding it was a mistake, when, on removing some of the letters, and lifting them up for the purpose of shutting the box, a miniature portrait attracted his eye. He thought he recognised the features. He paused for a moment, still gazing at it. At last he exclaimed, "Why! this is surely Leslie Winyard's portrait! How came it here? This must be a mistake!" Again he looked at the letters, but there was no mistake. The letters were all addressed to Lady Glenmore, and some of them were his own.
He involuntarily shuddered. For a moment he half doubted what to do; whether to close the box, and leave it to Lady Glenmore to explain a circumstance which appeared so strange, or whether himself to endeavour to elucidate the mystery by an investigation of the contents. He hesitated between these two resolves, while his hand mechanically turned the papers over. In another moment his attention was arrested by a few brief words beginning, "You will not leave Paris, surely, so cruelly, so unexpectedly? Remember there are duties of the heart, as well as those of convenance. I rely upon your giving me some days to prepare for your absence: indeed you owe me this favour;"—and the note ran on in a similar strain of familiarity, and implied confidence of a return of sentiment.
To a person of Lord Glenmore's open, unsuspicious nature, the shadow of such a discovery as seemed now unfolding itself was paralyzing; yet he was a man of too much strong sense alike to shrink from investigation when such was necessary, as to act upon any sudden impulse, or form a hasty conclusion. There was enough, however, in what he had seen, to make him think deeply, fearfully, and to determine him on probing the matter at once to its very source.
After a few moments' reflection, his resolution was taken. He knew that to breathe such a suspicion as these circumstances created of the woman he loved, even to herself, if she were innocent, would be the severest wound and deepest degradation that could be inflicted on her heart; and if she were not innocent, that it would demand more of calm reflection, than, in the agony of excited feelings, he could perhaps command, in order to come to any decision. He determined, therefore, ere he took any further step in the business, to proceed to an immediate examination of the porte-feuille. With every nerve stretched to agony, and a brain on fire, he removed the papers one by one, turning over all the letters and notes it contained. He dreaded to find what he was searching for. Who can express the pain of such a search? It was some time before he found any character assimilating to those of the note he had already perused. At length, when he came near the bottom of the portfolio, the same hand-writing presented itself on a thousand scraps of paper, and on the direction of various letters.
Again he started, and was obliged for a moment to pause,—his senses refused their office; but, in another, he rallied; though with that inward tremor which checks the pulse of life, he turned them over, and, seizing the first that presented itself, read it with a perfect knowledge of its contents. The notes and letters were numerous, yet he missed not one; but continued to read them carefully through with breathless eagerness, alive to the apprehension of discovering, at every line of their perusal, something that would inflict a more deadly wound than he had yet received. When he came to the conclusion, he literally gasped for breath. "Thank God," he exclaimed, as he dashed a burning tear from his cheek, "there is nothing positively to criminate the wife of my bosom!" But to so fond, so noble and faithful a heart as Lord Glenmore's, was it not sufficient agony to find, that, while absent from him, her intimacy with another had been of that kind which could permit of such a correspondence?—a correspondence which proved that her intercourse with Mr. Leslie Winyard had been of that nature which sullies the purity of a married woman; and which proved, likewise, that it had been one of daily habitude, and that not only had the hours of the day been passed in his presence, but often, by the dates of the notes, it was evident she must have received them in the morning before she arose, and at night, after she had retired to rest. Was this not sufficient to harrow up his soul? Calling, however, to his aid as much calmness as the circumstances in which he was placed could admit, he reperused the notes, to avoid all chance of a hasty or superficial judgment; and again he had the consolation of feeling certain that they in nowise criminated Lady Glenmore, however much they proved her guilty of an indiscretion of a most perilous kind.
The letters were the artful compositions of a man of intrigue, such as he knew Mr. Leslie Winyard to be; and in the intimacy which they discovered there was a stain on the character of Lady Glenmore, which, though many degrees removed from positive vice, was still a degradation to her and to himself. And is there not a pang of long remorse to follow such a dereliction of duty? And are there not tears of penitence, wrung from the heart's inmost core, to be shed, which, though they through mercy wash out sin, cannot wash out shame? And is there not a something, too, of self-condemnation that pierces the heart of the husband who can, in the veriest shadow of a shade, impute to his own neglect, or carelessness, or over-weening security, his wife's aberrations? Oh! what a world of solemn reflection was now opened up before Lord Glenmore's view! Bitterly did he repent having ever suffered a man of such a character as Mr. Leslie Winyard to be on terms even of acquaintance in his house.
It was not the time, however, to dwell on this irretrievable point; neither to give way to the suspicions which flashed across him, of Lady Tenderden's having been, at least, deeply to blame in suffering the progress of an affair of which she must have been aware, and which she ought to have arrested in its course by returning home directly. Neither did he suffer himself to dwell on the reflection, that perhaps the society into which Lady Glenmore had been thrown in England might have laid the foundation of her present deviation from propriety. It was all too late. It was enough, for the present moment, to know, by the evidence before him, that a fearful evil existed; and he prayed inwardly that he might already have learned its full extent. He felt that he could have no surer test how far Lady Glenmore's heart was involved in the error of her conduct, than by a direct appeal to herself; for he thought, "It is impossible she could as yet have lost that ingenuousness, that openness of disposition, which was ever her peculiar charm! The brief space of a few months cannot have uprooted virtues which were the growth of years! Should it be,"—and again he offered up aspirations to Heaven that strength and counsel might be given him to act for the best under all circumstances, and as in a Christian spirit he ought to do.