But Lady Adelina herself at length grew uneasy at beholding the progress of this unhappy passion. His mind seemed to have lost all it's strength, and to be incapable of making even an effort to shake off an affection which his honour would not allow him to attempt rendering successful. His spirits, affected by the listless solitude in which he lived, were sunk into hopeless despondence; and his sister was every day more alarmed, not only for his peace but for his life. She therefore tried to make him determine to quit her, for a short abode in London; but to do that he absolutely refused. Lord Clancarryl had long pressed him to go to Ireland: he had not seen his eldest sister for some years; and ardently wished to embrace her and her children. But Fitz-Edward was at her house; and to meet Fitz-Edward was impossible. Lady Clancarryl, deceived by a plausible story, which had been framed to account for Lady Adelina's absence, was, as well as her Lord, entirely ignorant of the share Fitz-Edward had in it: they believed it to have been occasioned solely by her antipathy to Trelawny, and her fear lest her relations should insist on her again residing with him; and it was necessary that nothing should be said to undeceive them. Godolphin had therefore been obliged to form several excuses to account for his declining the pressing invitations he received; and he found that his eldest sister was already much hurt by his apparent neglect. In one of her last letters, she had mentioned that Fitz-Edward was gone to France; and Lady Adelina pointed out to Godolphin several passages which convinced him he had given pain by his long absence to his beloved Camilla, and prevailed upon him to go to Ireland. He arrived therefore at Lough Carryl two days after his sister had returned thither with Lord Delamere. CHAPTER XII Mr. Godolphin was extremely surprised to find, in Ireland, Delamere, the happy Delamere! who he supposed had long since been with Emmeline, waiting the fortunate hour that was to unite them for ever. A very few weeks now remained of the year which he had promised to remain unmarried; yet instead of his being ready to attend his bride to England, to claim in the face of the world his father's consent, he was lingering in another country, where he appeared to have come only to indulge dejection; for he frequently fled from society, and when he was in it, forgot himself in gloomy reveries.