“And yet I thought he held me in his arms,” she replied—“I thought I felt his hands press mine.—Let me sleep and dream again.”
Now thinking it best to undeceive her, “It is no dream, my dear,” returned Miss Woodley.
“Is it not?” cried she, starting up and leaning on her elbow—“Then I suppose I must go away—go for ever away.”
Sandford now entered. Having been told the news, he came to condole—but at the sight of him Matilda was terrified, and cried, “Do not reproach me, do not upbraid me—I know I have done wrong—I know I had but one command from my father, and that I have disobeyed.”
Sandford could not reproach her, for he could not speak; he therefore only walked to the window and concealed his tears.
That whole day and night was passed in sympathetic grief, in alarm at every sound, lest it should be a messenger to pronounce Matilda’s destiny.
Lord Elmwood did not stay upon this visit above three hours at Elmwood House; he then set off again for the seat he had left; where Rushbrook still remained, and from whence his Lordship had merely come by accident, to look over some writings which he wanted dispatched to town.
During his short continuance here, Sandford cautiously avoided his presence; for he thought, in a case like this, what nature would not of herself effect, no art, no arguments of his, could accomplish: to Nature and Providence he left the whole. What these two powerful principles brought about, the reader will judge, when he peruses the following letter, received early the next morning by Miss Woodley.