“Stop, Lady Delacour!” cried his lordship, with a degree of emotion and energy which he had never shown till now: “stop, I conjure, I command you, madam! I am not sufficiently master of myself—I once loved you too well to hear such a stroke. Trust me with no such secret—say no more—you have said enough—too much. I forgive you, that is all I can do: but we must part, Lady Delacour!” said he, breaking from her with agony expressed in his countenance.
“The man has a heart, a soul, I protest! You knew him better than I did, Miss Portman. Nay, you are not gone yet, my lord! You really love me, I find.”
“No, no, no,” cried he, vehemently: “weak as you take me to be, Lady Delacour, I am incapable of loving a woman who has disgraced me, disgraced herself, her family, her station, her high endowments, her—” His utterance failed.
“Oh, Lady Delacour!” cried Belinda, “how can you trifle in this manner?”
“I meant not,” said her ladyship, “to trifle: I am satisfied. My lord, it is time that you should be satisfied. I can give you the most irrefragable proof, that whatever may have been the apparent levity of my conduct, you have had no serious cause for jealousy. But the proof will shock—disgust you. Have you courage to know more?—Then follow me.”
He followed her.—Belinda heard the boudoir door unlocked.—In a few minutes they returned.—Grief, and horror, and pity, were painted in Lord Delacour’s countenance, as he passed hastily through the room.
“My dearest friend, I have taken your advice: would to Heaven I had taken it sooner!” said Lady Delacour to Miss Portman. “I have revealed to Lord Delacour my real situation. Poor man! he was shocked beyond expression. He behaved incomparably well. I am convinced that he would, as he said, let his hand be cut off to save my life. The moment his foolish jealousy was extinguished, his love for me revived in full force. Would you believe it? he has promised me to break with odious Mrs. Luttridge. Upon my charging him to keep my secret from her, he instantly, in the handsomest manner in the world, declared he would never see her more, rather than give me a moment’s uneasiness. How I reproach myself for having been for years the torment of this man’s life!”
“You may do better than reproach yourself, my dear Lady Delacour,” said Belinda; “you may yet live for years to be the blessing and pride of his life. I am persuaded that nothing but your despair of obtaining domestic happiness has so long enslaved you to dissipation; and now that you find a friend in your husband, now that you know the affectionate temper of your little Helena, you will have fresh views and fresh hopes; you will have the courage to live for yourself, and not for what is called the world.”
“The world!” cried Lady Delacour, with a tone of disdain: “how long has that word enslaved a soul formed for higher purposes!” She paused, and looked up towards heaven with an expression of fervent devotion, which Belinda had once, and but once, before seen in her countenance. Then, as if forgetful even that Belinda was present, she threw herself upon a sofa, and fell, or seemed to fall, into a profound reverie. She was roused by the entrance of Marriott, who came into the room to ask whether she would now take her laudanum. “I thought I had taken it,” said she in a feeble voice; and as she raised her eyes and saw Belinda, she added, with a faint smile, “Miss Portman, I believe, has been laudanum to me this morning: but even that will not do long, you see; nothing will do for me now but this,” and she stretched out her hand for the laudanum. “Is not it shocking to think,” continued she, after she had swallowed it, “that in laudanum alone I find the means of supporting existence?”
She put her hand to her head, as if partly conscious of the confusion of her own ideas: and ashamed that Belinda should witness it, she desired Marriott to assist her to rise, and to support her to her bedchamber. She made a sign to Miss Portman not to follow her. “Do not take it unkindly, but I am quite exhausted, and wish to be alone; for I am grown fond of being alone some hours in the day, and perhaps I shall sleep.”