"Well, let her be as sly as she will, she cannot deceive me! I'll watch her! I'll defy her to think, walk, look, or speak, without my knowing of it; and if I find she nourishes even the thought of rivalling Elvira, she shall quit my house immediately. I will encourage no vipers."
Sir Ambrose smiled inwardly at the mistaken confidence of his friend in his own judgment. Thinking it useless, however, to irritate him by farther opposition, he endeavoured to turn the conversation upon another subject. "It is strange," said he, "how frequently I have been thinking of that Mummy. If there be no deception in the business, it is a perfect miracle!"
"And what deception can there be?" returned the duke, peevishly: "you think yourself so very wise, and that you know so much better than other people, only because you are always suspecting something wrong. Now, for my part, I think, as poor Dr. Entwerfen used to say, 'Incredulity is often as much the offspring of folly as credulity'!"
"I wonder what has become of the doctor and Edric? for, ill as Edric behaved, he is still my son; and I own I should like to know where he is."
"Oh! I don't think you have the least occasion in the world to trouble yourself about him. Depend upon it, he and his mad friend, Doctor Entwerfen are rambling about Egypt, and are happier now than ever they were before in their lives."
"If you are right," said Sir Ambrose, "and they are now in Egypt; as they have lost their balloon, they may be even in want of necessaries."
"And it is very right they should be so," replied the duke; "what business had they to go away?"
The hours of this eventful day rolled on heavily with Rosabella; the important consequences of the struggle she was about to engage in forcibly impressed her mind. Ruin must inevitably ensue if she failed, and even if she succeeded, her path seemed strewed with thorns. The anxiety natural to the intrigues she was about to be involved in, also hung about her. Though haughty and vindictive, Rosabella was not naturally deceitful. Indeed the very violence and impetuosity of her passions rendered it difficult for her to appear otherwise than she really was. The secret intercourse, however, which, through the intervention of Marianne, she had long maintained with Father Morris, had somewhat practised her in concealment, but it was still repugnant to her nature. She was now anxiously expecting a visit from the reverend father, and as he was generally remarkably punctual to his appointments, his non-appearance filled her with a sensation of dread; and a presentiment of evil crept over her, that she tried in vain to overcome.
"It is long past the hour the father mentioned," said Marianne, after a long pause, during which she had been listening with the utmost attention to every sound. "I cannot imagine the cause of his absence. Surely our plans have not been discovered." And as she spoke, her blanched cheeks and livid lips betrayal the deep interest she took in his fate.
"How gloomily that heavy bell clangs in my ear!" said Rosabella; "it seems to ring the death-knell of my hopes. A gloomy foreboding hangs upon my mind, and undefinable horrors rise in dim perspective before me."