Meanwhile, Belinda having permitted Mr. Vincent to address her, he was being given a fair trial whether he could win her love. They had heard reports of Clarence Hervey's speedy marriage with an heiress, Miss Hartley, and found them confirmed by a letter Lady Delacour received from him. Some years ago he had formed the romantic idea of educating a wife for himself, and having found a beautiful, artless girl in the New Forest, he had taken her under his care on the death of her grandmother.
She felt herself bound in honour and gratitude to him when her fortune changed, and she was acknowledged by her father, Mr. Hartley, who had long been searching for her, and who had traced her at last by the picture Clarence Hervey had caused to be exhibited.
With the utmost magnanimity, Hervey, although he saw a successful rival for Belinda's hand in Augustus Vincent, rescued him from ruin at the gaming-table, and induced him to promise never to gamble again.
"I was determined Belinda's husband should be my friend. I have succeeded beyond my hopes," he said.
But Vincent's love of play had decided Belinda at last. She refused him finally in a letter which she confessed she found difficult to write, but which she sent because she had promised she would not hold him in suspense once she had made her decision.
After this Virginia Hartley confessed to her attachment for one Captain Sunderland, and Clarence was free to avow his passion for Belinda.
"And what is Miss Portman to believe," cried one of Belinda's friends, "when she has seen you on the very eve of marriage with another lady?"
"The strongest merit I can plead with such a woman as Miss Portman," he replied, "is that I was ready to sacrifice my own happiness to a sense of duty."