“Ah! it is clear you scarce attended to what he said. I met him this morning at Mrs. Balford’s, and thinking you wished to resume your researches into ‘The History of the Earth and Animated Nature,’ I asked him to come here this evening.”
“Heavens, Emily! you could not be so imprudent!”
“Where can be the imprudence, Isabel, since you scarce attend to what he says? Hark! a cab; it is the American,—stay where you are—I’ll bring him up;” and away flew the giddy girl, leaving her companion in a state of flurried anxiety, scarce proper for the bride elect of Lord Edward Fortescue.
The American prolonged his stay till a late hour, and that night Isabel Derode imbibed a deep, absorbing passion for the graceful foreigner. Lord Edward, feeling himself secure of his prize, troubled his betrothed but little with his company. He confined his attentions to sending her presents, and escorting her twice a week to the opera.
The latitude which English society allows females of rank, caused the persevering assiduities of the American to be but little noticed, and one week before the intended nuptials of Lord Edward Fortescue and Isabel Derode, the fashionable circles were thrown into unutterable excitement by the following announcement in a morning paper:—
“Elopement in High Life.—On Wednesday last, the beautiful and accomplished daughter of a certain gallant major in —— Square, eloped with a young gentleman of fortune from the United States. This imprudent step, on the part of the young lady, is the more to be regretted, as she was under promise of marriage to a certain noble lord. As her flight was almost immediately discovered, hopes are entertained of overtaking the fugitives before they reach Gretna Green.”
No such parties, however, as those described, had reached that matrimonial mart. Pursuit was made on almost every avenue leading from the metropolis, but in vain. The fugitives had an hour’s start, and the advantage of having arranged their means of flight. The smoking horses were scarcely checked at the door of each inn, when fresh relays were springing in the harness, and Anson—for it was he—with his victim, was enjoying a hasty repast in Calais, at the moment the emissaries of Derode reached Dover.
Lord Edward professed himself greatly shocked at the unhappy occurrence, but derived comfort from the reflection that his betrothed had eloped before, instead of after marriage; and having politely expressed to Derode his opinion that all the daughters of Eve were dangerous, if not useless members of the community, he, with the utmost sangfroid wished him adieu.
A month elapsed, and Derode pushed his suit with Mrs. Torrance with more vigor, from the unlucky circumstance of his daughter having frustrated his hopes of her high match with Lord Edward. All enquiries concerning the whereabout of the erring girl were fruitless, and what was singular, none knew the name or person of her seducer—until one night a hackney coach drew up at the door of Mrs. Torrance, and a gentleman handed, or rather lifted a drooping woman out of the carriage, and placed her on the steps of the house. The parties were Anson and his victim. He merely said to the servant who answered the knock, “take care of this lady: she is a friend of your mistress,” and hastily re-entering the vehicle, drove rapidly off. The benevolent mistress of the mansion received the forsaken wanderer with the utmost kindness, and overlooking her error, sought, with true Christian charity, to bind up her crushed spirit. Thus, by a strange coincidence, this amiable lady had under her roof at the same moment, two wretched outcasts—victims to man’s unhallowed passions.
Mrs. Anson had been growing weaker every day since she entered this hospitable dwelling, and it was now evident she held her life by a frail tenure. Derode was a constant visitor, yet he knew not Mrs. Anson was an inmate of the house; he deemed she had complied with his wishes and crossed the Atlantic.