Fitzhenry’s letter fell from her hands, and almost hysteric sobs escaped from her heart. “What have I done to be so cruelly used, so scorned, so upbraided!” she could not help ejaculating; and again she seized the fatal letter. “He despises me for having trusted him; he even reproaches me for that, in which he alone is to blame. She would leave him; leave those paltry honours which he thought had been her object; leave him that wealth which had been the motive (she could no longer doubt it) of her having been sought in marriage by him; and with the vehemence of indignant feeling, she directly seized on a pen, in order to demand an immediate and total separation. But scarcely had she written the first word, when, with the natural timidity of a young girl, she shrunk from the responsibility and _enterprise_ of so desperate a step, and from all the publicity which she would, by it, draw on herself. She laid down her pen; pressed, with both hands, her throbbing temples, as if to quiet their agitated pulsations; and then, returning to the fatal letter, she perused it again and again, till gradually her most angry feelings were calmed. She _could_ not curse him—_would_ not upbraid him. His language to her, though harsh, was so open, so honourable! and then, with the happy buoyancy of youth, and of an innocent, unbroken mind—”I will make him love me yet,” she thought—”I will so consult his wishes in every thing; so play my hard part, that he shall see I am not the mere child, the worldly insensible fool he thinks me; he must in time love me, and we shall still be happy.” This was what her _feelings_ dictated; and this line of conduct she told herself her duty to her parents required of her. She would not break their hearts by letting them know how they had been deceived; but, for their sakes, she would submit to her fate. Happy in having thus reconciled her duties to her inclinations, she could not help picturing to herself _that_ future to which, with such fortunate credulity, she fondly looked, when she should have overcome her husband’s unfavourable opinion of her, and won his affections; and, in indulging such flattering dreams, Emmeline sat some time lost in thought, till roused by the sound of hurried steps in the adjoining room. That room was Lord Fitzhenry’s. The drawing-room opened into a gallery, the first door in which, was that of Emmeline’s dressing-room; her bedroom was beyond; and beyond that again, but, having no communication with Emmeline’s apartment, was Lord Fitzhenry’s; it had been his when a boy; and that now allotted to Emmeline had been his father’s.