At length the day of Seymour's departure arrived, and we had an affectionate and on my side a tearful parting: but I recovered myself soon; and though I deeply felt the unkindness of his leaving me after my recent affliction, I declared it the wisest thing he could do, and that I hoped he would find me fat and cheerful at his return. But I saw I did not convert my auditors; and that Lord Charles Belmour, who called to inquire after my health, absolutely started when he found that Seymour was gone away on a journey. I could not bear this, but left the room; for I could not, would not, either by word or look, blame my husband; and I could not bear to observe that he was blamed by others. At the end of three weeks my uncle came down to fetch his wife; and I heard, with a satisfaction which I could not conceal, that my uncle hoped he should be able to prove that Lady Martindale, as she was called, was a spy of the Convention, and that he could get her sent out of the country on the Alien Bill; for that she was undoubtedly the mistress, not the wife, of Lord Martindale. I also learnt that Lord Charles had been indefatigable in using his exertions and his interest to effect this purpose, in hopes, as my aunt said, of opening my husband's eyes; and she thought, when he saw that his uncle and his friend were thus active and watchful to save him from perdition, that he could not refuse to be convinced and saved. Alas! we none of us as yet knew Pendarves. We did not know that in proportion to conscious strength of mind is the capacity of conviction--and that no one is so jealous of interference, and so averse to being proved in the wrong, as those who are most prone to err and most conscious of weakness. My uncle and aunt went away in high spirits at the idea of the good which was going to accrue to me from their exertions, and left me much cheered in my prospects, little thinking of the blow which these exertions were ensuring to me. My husband wrote to me on his journey about twice a week; but as he rarely did so till the post was just going out, or the horses were waiting, I was convinced, either that he had lost all remains of tenderness for me, or that, conscious of acting ill, he could not bear to write. When he had been gone two months, I was expecting his arrival in London every day, and with no small anxiety; for my uncle had written me word, that as soon as Annette Beauvais (for that _was_ her real name) arrived in town, she would be seized by the officers employed by Government, and be shipped off directly for Altona--whither Lord Martindale, who was reckoned a dangerous disloyal subject, would be advised to accompany her.