Lord Glenarvon had not written to Calantha for some days; he had left the castle; and she laboured under the most painful suspense. The narrative of Alice’s sufferings was still in her possession. At length he sent for it. “My Calantha,” he said, in a letter she received from him, “My Calantha, I have not heard from you, and my misery is the greater, as I fear that you are resolved to see me no more. I wish for the narrative in your possession; I know the impression it must make; and strange as it may appear, I almost rejoice at it. It will spare you much future sorrow; and it can scarce add one pang to what I already suffer. Had you accompanied me, it was, I will now acknowledge, my firm resolve to have devoted every moment of my life to your happiness—to have seen, to have thought, to have lived, but for you alone. I had then dared to presume, that the excess of my attachment would remunerate you, for all the sacrifices you might be compelled to make; that the fame of Glenarvon would hide, from the eyes of a censorious world, the stigma of disgrace, which must, I fear, involve you; and that, at all events, in some other country, we might live alone for each other.—The dream is past; you have undeceived me; your friends require it: be it, as you and as they desire. I am about to quit Ireland. If you would see me before I go, it must be on the instant. What are the wrongs of my country to me? Let others, who have wealth and power, defend her:—let her look to English policy for protection; to English justice for liberty and redress. Without a friend, even as I first set foot upon these shores, I now abandon them.” “Farewell, Calantha. Thou art the last link which yet binds me to life. It was for thy sake—for thine alone, that I yet forbore. It is to save thee, that I now rush onward to meet my fate: grieve not for me. I stood a solitary being till I knew you. I can encounter evils when I feel that I alone shall suffer. Let me not think that I have destroyed you. But for me, you then might have flourished happy and secure. O why would you tempt the fate of a ruined man?—I entreat you to send the papers in your possession. I am prepared for the worst. But if you could bring yourself to believe the agony of my mind at this moment, you would still feel for me, even though in all else chilled and changed.—Farewell, dearest of all earthly beings—my soul’s comforter and hope, farewell.” “I will go with thee Glenarvon, even should my fate exceed Alice’s in misery—I never will forsake thee.”