But she had no sooner quitted it than she repented her hasty flight. When Reynolds joined their hands, although Fitzhenry had not clasped hers in token of affection, still he had suffered his to remain with it; and, overcome by the old man’s address to him, he had appeared to have given way to the kind—the virtuous impulse of the moment. That impulse, and those virtuous feelings, might possibly have produced a favourable explanation; and she, by leaving him so abruptly, had now, she feared, evidently shown a reluctance to any thing which might have produced a reconciliation between them. Twice she had her hand on the lock to return; but, timid from excess of affection, each time her courage failed her. The door which she had scarcely closed, reopened of itself, and she heard these words uttered by Fitzhenry: “It is impossible—indeed it can’t be so;—but depend upon it, nothing shall be wanting on my part to contribute to her happiness, and——” Emmeline waited for no more. As one pursued by a horrid vision, she hurried to her own room. The shades of evening deepened around her, as, alone and half stupified with her various feelings, she counted the striking of the heavy hours as they passed. Not a sound was to be heard in the uninhabited house—no one came near her. At length, when the clock slowly, solemnly sounded twelve, she started up, and, recollecting that her maid was probably waiting for her, she rung the bell, that she might dismiss her for the night; but she first sent her to enquire after Reynolds, whose room was in a distant part of the building. On the return of Jenkins, the report she brought was—“That my lord was still with Reynolds—that they were apparently engaged in serious conversation—for that no one was allowed to go into the room, my lord himself giving him the necessary medicines, and having dismissed the nurse.”