“No: by all that is sacred, ’tis remorse for ever having meditated such an injury. Yet I again repeat, if you listen to me, you will find I am not so culpable as you believe. Oh! let me beseech you to do so; let me hope that my life may be devoted to you alone, and that I may thus have opportunities of apologizing for my conduct. Oh! dearest Amanda,” kneeling before her, “drive me not from you in the hour of penitence.”
“You plead in vain, my lord,” cried she, breaking from him.
He started in an agony from the ground, and again seized her. “Is it thus,” he exclaimed, “with such unfeeling coldness I am abandoned by Amanda? I will leave you, if you only say I am not detested by you; if you only say the remembrance of the sweet hours we have spent together will not become hateful to you.”
He was pale and trembled; and a tear wet his cheek. Amanda’s began to flow: she averted her head, to hide her emotion; but he had perceived it. “You weep, my Amanda,” said he, “and you feel the influence of pity!”
“No, no,” cried she, in a voice scarcely articulate: “I will acknowledge,” continued she, “I believe you possessed of sensibility; and an anticipation of the painful feelings it will excite on the reflection of your conduct to me, now stops my further reproaches. Ah! my lord, timely profit by mental correction, nor ever again encourage a passion which virtue cannot sanction or reason justify.”
“Thus spoke the angel; And the grave rebuke, severe in youthful beauty Added grace invincible.”
Amanda darted from Lord Mortimer; and entering the cottage, hastily closed the door. Her looks terrified the nurse, who was the only one of the family up, and who, by means of one of her sons, had discovered that Amanda had taken refuge from the thunder-storm in Tudor Hall.
Amanda had neither hat nor cloak on; her face was pale as death; her hair, blown by the wind, and wet from the rain, hung dishevelled about her; and to the inquiries of her nurse she could only answer by sobs and tears. “Lack a tay,” said the nurse, “what ails my sweet chilt?”
Relieved by tears, Amanda told her nurse she was not very well, and that she had been reflecting on the great impropriety there was in receiving Lord Mortimer’s visits, whom she begged her nurse, if he came again, not to admit.
The nurse shook her head, and said she supposed there had been some quarrel between them; but if Lord Mortimer had done anything to vex her tear chilt, she would make him pay for it. Amanda charged her never to address him on such a subject; and having made her promise not to admit him, she retired to her chamber faint, weary, and distressed. The indignity offered her by Colonel Belgrave had insulted her purity and offended her pride, but he had not wounded the softer feelings of her soul; it was Mortimer alone had power to work them up to agony.