“It is too late,” said Calantha, springing up, and tearing the letter: “it is too late;” and nearly suffocated with the agony of her passionate grief. She gasped for breath. “Oh! that it were not. I cannot—I dare not stay to meet the eyes of an injured husband, to see him unsuspicious, and know that I have betrayed him. This is too hard to bear:—a death of torture is preferable to a continuance of this; and then to part, my aunt knows not, nor cannot even conceive, the torture of that word. She never felt what I do—she knows not what it is to love, and leave.... These words comprise every thing, the extremes of ecstacy and agony. Oh! who can endure it. They may tear my heart to pieces; but never hope that I will consent to leave Glenarvon.” The consciousness of these feelings, the agitation of her mind, and the dread of Lord Avondale’s return, made her meet Sophia, who now entered her apartment with some coldness. The scene that followed need not be repeated. All that a cold and common-place friend can urge, to upbraid, villify and humiliate, was uttered by Miss Seymour; and all in vain. She left her, therefore, with much indignation; and, seeing that her mother was preparing to enter the apartment she had quitted: “O! go not to her,” she said; “you will find only a hardened sinner; you had best leave her to herself. My friendship and patience are tired out at last; I have forborne much; but I can endure no more. Oh! she is quite lost.” “She is not lost, she is not hardened,” said Mrs. Seymour, much agitated. “She is my own sister’s child: she will yet hear me.”