“Sit down, Amabel; sit down, Miss Daveney,” said Sir Adrian.
“Yes, Clarence, they will both wish you well; I do, from my soul; I take some blame to myself in this wretched business; but what is done cannot be undone. You have been the victim of that wretched, worthless being, whom it would be an insult to name here. Sit down, my lad, amongst us again; we are all deucedly sorry to part with you; when we meet again, you will be all the wiser for this business, I hope. I hardly like to let you go, but I suppose I must. I shall not get on at all well without you, my dear boy. Confound that devil.
“Well, Amabel, it is enough to make any one swear; for, now that she is fairly down, every one comes forward to say that she ought to have been banished from society long ago. I don’t pity her one bit,” continued the General, rising and pacing the chamber; “but I am heartily vexed to think she has seduced my sister’s son, and in this affair she is the seducer, not Clarence.”
“Oh! sir, I deserve more reproaches than you dream of,” replied his nephew. “I cannot stay; I unworthy of any kindness or consideration. Aunt, God bless you.”
Lady Amabel was sobbing audibly.
I stood mute and tearless.
Something like “Good-bye” was whispered. I looked up in that face, once so ingenuous, so happy. The laughing eyes were clouded with melancholy; the saucy curled lip pale and compressed; the tall, graceful form trembling with emotion. Not one word could I utter. My fingers closed upon his shaking hand for an instant. I withdrew them. He had pressed them so tightly in his nervous agony, that the indentation of a little ring I wore drew blood.
“Poor child! poor child!” said Sir Adrian, very kindly—a sudden thought about me causing him to stop and look fixedly at my sad countenance; “I pity you, too, from my heart. Amabel, this has been a sad business; it has moved me more than I like to own.”
I looked up—Clarence Fairfax was gone!
The vacant appointment of aide-de-camp was offered to Mr Lyle; I applauded his delicacy when he told me he could not accept it under the circumstance of Clarence’s disgrace.