This female at length thought it her duty to wait upon her worthy employer, and inform him the young lady in her trust would certainly die, unless there were means employed to oblige her to take some nourishment.
Lord Margrave, glad of an opportunity that might apologize for his intrusion upon Lady Matilda, went with eagerness to her apartment, and throwing himself at her feet, conjured her if she would save his life, as well as her own, to submit to be consoled.
The extreme disgust and horror his presence inspired, caused Matilda for a moment to forget all her want of power, her want of health, her weakness; and rising from the place where she sat, she cried, with her voice elevated,
“Leave me, my Lord, or I’ll die in spite of all your care; I’ll instantly expire with grief, if you do not leave me.”
Accustomed to the tears and reproaches of the sex—though not of those like her—he treated with contempt these menaces of anger, and seizing her hand, carried it to his lips.
Enraged, and overwhelmed with sorrow at the affront, she cried, (forgetting every other friend she had,) “Oh! my dear Miss Woodley, why are you not here to protect me?”
“Nay,” returned Lord Margrave, stifling a fit of laughter, “I should think the old Priest would be as good a champion as the lady.”
The remembrance of Sandford, with all his kindness, now rushed so forcibly on Matilda’s mind, that she shed a shower of tears, on thinking how much he felt, and would continue to feel, for her situation. Once she thought on Rushbrook, and thought even he would be sorry for her. Of her father she did not think—she dared not—one single moment that thought intruded, but she hurried it away—it was too bitter.
It was now again quite night; and near to that hour when she came first to the house. Lord Margrave, though at some distance from her, remained still in her apartment, while her female companion had stolen away. His insensibility to her lamentations—the agitated looks he sometimes cast upon her—her weak and defenceless state, all conspired to fill her mind with horror.
He saw her apprehensions in her distracted face, disheveled hair, and the whole of her forlorn appearance—yet, notwithstanding his former resolutions, he could not resist the desire of fulfilling all her dreadful expectations.