Immediate action, under a sense of mental agony, is less painful than an inactive endurance; and Lord Glenmore hastened home to sound the full depth of his misery. Arrived at his house, he found Lady Glenmore was out. He felt it impossible to meet her any where but under his own roof and alone, and was therefore determined to await her return. It was late before she came in; and as she hurried from her carriage, she gave orders that it should be at the door again in an hour, and was proceeding hastily to her apartment to change her dress for dinner, when a servant followed her half way up stairs, saying that Lord Glenmore had desired to see her ladyship as soon as she entered. "Tell Lord Glenmore," she replied, in a gay tone of voice, "that I am very late, and have hardly time to dress. I am going to dine with Lady Tenderden; but I will see him before I go out. At what time is Lord Glenmore's carriage ordered? at eight, is it not?"
"I believe so, my lady," was the reply.
"Oh! very well. Then I shall be with him before I go out."
Lord Glenmore, however, had heard his wife's voice; and coming out of his room he called to her, "Georgina, I must speak with you." There was something in the tone in which he spoke unlike its usual sound, which made Lady Glenmore, without waiting to answer, descend immediately to his room. She entered, and was beginning to state the purport of the message she had sent to him by the servant, when he said to her, in the same grave and impressive tone, "Georgina, you cannot leave home to-day."
"What is the matter?" she exclaimed. "My father! is he ill? or my mother? What has happened? Has any thing befallen them?—For mercy's sake tell me;"—and she rushed into his arms trembling and in tears. Lord Glenmore bade her compose herself. "They are well, quite well," he said; and gently disengaging himself from her, he gazed at her for a moment in silence, as though he would read her inmost soul; and then said, "Georgina, have you no other cause for apprehension than for the safety of your parents?"
"Oh, yes!" she replied wildly, "for yourself;" and again flung herself into his arms. "Has anything grieved you? has any thing befallen you?"
Lord Glenmore was touched by this genuine mark of feeling for himself, which he knew her too well to think was assumed. He sighed deeply; and pressing his hand on his breast, unconsciously gave utterance to the hope which, at the moment, this proof of her affection afforded him, murmuring audibly, "All may yet be well." Lady Glenmore looked at him with inquiring eye; when at length, taking from the table the packet of Leslie Winyard's letters, he opened them before her, asking her if she knew them, and if they had been addressed to herself. She looked at them with an expression of surprise; and then mingled shame and dismay were painted on her countenance, the colour went and came in her cheek, her lip trembled, and covering her face with her hands, she burst into an agony of tears.
"Georgina, I adjure you," said her husband in the most solemn tone, rendered hollow and tremulous by emotion, "I call upon you by all that is sacred; by your vows, plighted to me at the altar; by the love which, if all things are not alike deceptive, you have till lately evinced towards me——."
"Till lately!" she interrupted him, with a gesture and an expression of the most harrowing agony, "oh! ever, ever!"—and would again have thrown herself into his arms, but that Lord Glenmore retreated from her advance, and she fell on her knees with clasped hands before him, and raising her eyes stedfastly to his, remained in silent supplication, till Lord Glenmore, evidently as much moved as herself, gently raised her, and bidding her sit on the sofa by him, said, "You must be calm, Georgina. I must hear your explanation. I need not ask you if you felt there was no impropriety, as a married woman, in your receiving notes of this description: your agitation proves that you feel it was wrong. But I must first know how you came to admit of any addresses of the sort; and then I must learn how far your error has proceeded, and whether your heart is engaged in it."—Lady Glenmore shook her head in agony of denial.—"And remember, Lady Glenmore," continued Lord Glenmore, "that whilst the most perfect openness on your part can alone restore you in time to my affection, so also any deception for the moment, or any success in imposing on me, must eventually recoil on yourself, and only hasten your ruin and the entire loss of my heart and esteem."
Lady Glenmore remained bathed in tears, apparently unable to give utterance to what was passing in her breast.