Her father watched over and spoke to her. Mrs. Seymour endeavoured to awaken her to some sense of her situation:—she spoke to her of her husband. Calantha! when reason had ceased to guide thee, she called to sooth, to warn thee, but thou could’st not hear. That voice of conscience, that voice of truth, which in life’s happier day thou had’st rejected, now spoke in vain; and thy rash steps hurried on to seek the termination of thy mad career. CHAPTER LXXXI. When the very soul is annihilated by some sudden and unexpected evil, the outward frame is calm—no appearance of emotion, of tears, of repining, gives notice of the approaching evil. Calantha motionless, re-perused Glenarvon’s letter, and spoke with gentleness to those who addressed her. Oh! did the aunt that loved her, as she read that barbarous letter, exhibit equal marks of fortitude? No: in tears, in reproaches, she vented her indignation: but still Calantha moved not. There is a disease which it is terrible to name. Ah, see you not its symptoms in the wild eye of your child. Dread, dread the violence of her uncurbed passions, of an imagination disordered and overpowered. Madness to frenzy has fallen upon her. What tumult, what horror, reigns in that mind: how piercing were the shrieks she uttered: how hollow the cry that echoed Glenarvon’s name! Lady Margaret held her to her bosom, and folded her arms around her. No stern looks upbraided her for her crimes: all was kindness unutterable—goodness that stabbed to the heart. And did she turn from such indulgence—did her perverted passions still conquer every better feeling, as even on a bed of death her last hope was love—her last words Glenarvon! Sophia approached Calantha with words of kindness and religion; but the words of religion offered no balm to a mind estranged and utterly perverted. Her cheeks were pale, and her hollow eyes, glazed and fixed, turned from the voice of comfort. Mrs. Seymour placed her children near her; but with tears of remorse she heard them speak, and shrunk from their caresses. And still it was upon Glenarvon that she called. Yet when certain death was expected, or far worse, entire loss of reason, she by slow degrees recovered. There is a recovery from disease which is worse than death; and it was her destiny to prove it. She loved her own sorrow too well: she cherished every sad remembrance: she became morose, absorbed, and irritated to frenzy, if intruded upon. All virtue is blighted in such a bosom—all principle gone. It feeds upon its own calamity. Hope nothing from the miserable: a broken heart is a sepulchre in which the ruin of every thing that is noble and fair is enshrined.