But there was one voice which still recalled her:—it was her child’s. “My boy will awake, and find me gone—he shall never have to reproach his mother.” And she stood uncertain how to act. Mrs. Seymour, to her extreme astonishment, was the only person who interrupted these reflections. She was the last she had expected to do so. She had read in the well-known lineaments of Calantha’s face:—that face which, as a book, she had perused from infancy, some desperate project:—the irritation, the passionate exhibition of grief was past—she was calm. Sophia, at Mrs. Seymour’s request, had therefore written to Calantha. She now gave her the letter. But it was received with sullen pride:—“Read this, Lady Avondale,” she said, and left the room. Calantha never looked at her, or she might have seen that she was agitated; but the words—“Read this, Lady Avondale,” repressed all emotion in her. It was long before she could bring herself to open Sophia’s letter. A servant entered with dinner for her. “The Admiral begs you will drink a glass of wine,” he said. She made no answer; but desired her maid to take it away, and leave her. She did not even perceive that Mac Allain, who was the bearer of this message, was in tears. Sophia’s letter was full of common-place truisms, and sounding periods—a sort of treatise upon vice, beginning with a retrospect of Calantha’s past life, and ending with a cold jargon of worldly considerations. A few words, written in another hand, at the conclusion, affected her more:—they were from her aunt, Mrs. Seymour. “You talk of leaving us, of braving misfortunes, Lady Avondale,” she said: “you do not contemplate, you cannot conceive, the evils you thus deride. I know;—yes, well I know, you will not be able to bear up under them. Ah! believe me, Calantha, guilt will make the proudest spirit sink, and your courage will fail you at the moment of trial. Why then seek it?—My child, time flies rapidly, and it may no longer be permitted you to return and repent. You now fly from reflection; but it will overtake you when too late to recall the emotions of virtue. Ah! remember the days of your childhood; recollect the high ideas you had conceived of honor, purity and virtue:—what disdain you felt for those who willingly deviated from the line of duty:—how true, how noble, how just were all your feelings. You have forsaken all; and you began by forsaking him who created and protected you! What wonder, then, that having left your religion and your God, you have abandoned every other tie that held you back from evil! Say, where do you mean to stop? Are you already guilty in more than thought?—No, no; I will never believe it; but yet, even if this were so, pause before you cast public dishonor upon your husband and innocent children. Oh! repent, repent, it is not yet too late.”