If ever Lady Euphrasia appeared pleasing in the eyes of Lord Mortimer, it was at this moment, when he was credulous enough to believe she had shed the tear of pity over his lost Amanda. He took her hand. “Ah! my dear Lady Euphrasia,” said he, in an accent of melting softness, “perhaps even now she needs consolation. A gentle female friend would be a comfort to her wounded heart.”
Lady Euphrasia immediately took the hint, and said she would go to her.
He led her to the door. “You are going,” cried he, “to perform the office of an angel—to console the afflicted. Ah! well does it become the young and gentle of your sex to pity such misfortunes.”
Her ladyship retired, but not indeed to the chamber of the forlorn Amanda. In her own she vented the rage of her soul in something little short of execrations against Lord Mortimer, for the affection she saw he still retained for Amanda.
On her ladyship’s retiring, Lady Greystock mentioned every particular she had heard from Mrs. Jennings, and bitterly lamented her having ever taken Amanda under her protection. The subject was too painful to be long endured by Lord Mortimer. He had heard of the early hour fixed for their journey, and saying he would no longer keep the ladies from repose, precipitately retired. He gave his man directions to watch their motions, and inform him when they left town.
Exhausted by the violence of her emotions, a temporary forgetfulness stole over the senses of Amanda, on her being left to solitude. In this state she continued till roused by a bustle in the house. She started, listened, and heard the sound of a carriage. Supposing it to be the one she had ordered for her departure, she sprang from the bed, and, going to the window, saw, instead of one for her, the marquis’s, into which he was handing the ladies. As soon as it drove from the door, she rang the bell, and the housekeeper immediately appeared, as Mrs. Jane had attended the marchioness to the villa. Amanda inquired “whether a carriage, as she directed, had been engaged for her.”
The housekeeper replied, “the hour in which she spoke was too late for such a purpose, but she had now sent about one.”
Amanda endeavored to exert herself, and was packing up her clothes, when a maid entered the chamber, and said, “Lord Mortimer was below, and wished to speak to her.”
Tumultuous joy pervaded the mind of Amanda. She had believed it probable she should not see him again before her departure for Ireland, from whence she had determined writing to him the particulars of the affair. His visit seemed to announce he thought not unfavorably of her. She supposed he came to assure her that his opinion of her integrity was unshaken—"and I shall yet triumph,” cried she, in the transport of the idea, “over malice and treachery.”