Guilty, but not hardened in her guilt, her pangs, her shame were the more excessive. She fled from the place at his approach; fled from his house, never again to return to a habitation where he was the master. She did not, however, elope with her paramour, but escaped to shelter herself in the most dreary retreat; where she partook of no one comfort from society, or from life, but the still unremitting friendship of Miss Woodley. Even her infant daughter she left behind, nor would allow herself the consolation of her innocent, though reproachful smiles—she left her in her father’s house, that she might be under his protection; parted with her, as she thought, for ever, with all the agonies with which mothers part from their infant children: and yet, even a mother can scarce conceive how much more sharp those agonies were, on beholding—the child sent after her, as the perpetual outcast of its father.
Lord Elmwood’s love to his wife had been extravagant—the effect of his hate was the same. Beholding himself separated from her by a barrier never to be removed, he vowed in the deep torments of his revenge, never to be reminded of her by one individual object; much less, by one so near to her as her child. To bestow upon that child his affections, would be, he imagined, still, in some sort, to divide them with the mother. Firm in his resolution, the beautiful Matilda, was, at the age of six years, sent out of her father’s house, and received by her mother with all the tenderness, but with all the anguish, of those parents, who behold their offspring visited by the punishment due only to their own offences.
While this rigid act was executing by Lord Elmwood’s agents at his command, himself was engaged in an affair of still weightier importance—that of life or death:—he determined upon his own death, or the death of the man who had wounded his honour and destroyed his happiness. A duel with his old antagonist was the result of this determination; nor was the Duke of Avon (who before the decease of his father and eldest brother, was Lord Frederick Lawnly) averse from giving him all the satisfaction he required. For it was no other than he, whose passion for Lady Elmwood had still subsisted, and whose address in gallantry left no means unattempted for the success of his designs;—no other than he, (who, next to Lord Elmwood, had been of all her lovers, the most favoured,) to whom Lady Elmwood sacrificed her own and her husband’s future peace, and thus gave to his vanity a prouder triumph, than if she had never bestowed her hand in marriage on another. This triumph however was but short—a month only, after the return of Lord Elmwood, the Duke was called upon to answer for his conduct, and was left where they met, so defaced with scars, as never again to endanger the honour of a husband. As Lord Elmwood was inexorable to all accommodation, their engagement continued for a long space of time; nor could any thing but the assurance that his opponent was slain, have at last torn him from the field, though he himself was dangerously wounded.
Yet even during the period of his danger, while for days he lay in the continual expectation of his own death, not all the entreaties of his dearest, most intimate, and most respected friends, could prevail upon him to pronounce forgiveness of his wife, or to suffer them to bring his daughter to him, for his last blessing.
Lady Elmwood, who was made acquainted with the minutest circumstance as it passed, appeared to wait the news of her husband’s decease with patience; but upon her brow, and in every lineament of her face was marked, that his death was an event she would not for a day survive: and she would have left her child an orphan, to have followed Lord Elmwood to the tomb. She was prevented the trial; he recovered; and from the ample vengeance he had obtained upon the irresistible person of the Duke, in a short time seemed to regain his usual tranquillity.
He recovered, but Lady Elmwood fell sick and languished—possessed of youth to struggle with her woes, she lingered on, till ten years decline brought her to that period, with which the reader is now going to be presented.
CHAPTER II.
In a lonely country on the borders of Scotland, a single house by the side of a dreary heath, was the residence of the once gay, volatile Miss Milner. In a large gloomy apartment of this solitary habitation (the windows of which scarce rendered the light accessible) was laid upon her death-bed, the once lovely Lady Elmwood—pale, half suffocated with the loss of breath; yet her senses perfectly clear and collected, which served but to sharpen the anguish of dying.
In one corner of the room, by the side of an old fashioned stool, kneels Miss Woodley, praying most devoutly for her still beloved friend, but in vain endeavouring to pray composedly—floods of tears pour down her furrowed cheeks, and frequent sobs of sorrow, break through each pious ejaculation.