Humbled, not yet sufficiently, but miserable, her fair name blasted, the jest of fools, the theme of triumphant malice, Calantha still gave vent to every furious passion, and openly rebelled against those who had abandoned her. She refused to see any one, to hear any admonitions, and, sickening at every contradiction to her authority, insisted upon doing things the most ill judged and unreasonable, to shew her power, or her indignation. Struck with horror at her conduct, every one now wrote to inform Lord Avondale of the absolute necessity of his parting from her. Hints were not only given, but facts were held up to view, and a life of folly, concluding in crime, was painted with every aggravation. Calantha knew not at this time the eager zeal that some had shewn, to hurl just vengeance upon a self-devoted victim. She was informed therefore of Lord Avondale’s expected return, and prepared to receive him with hardened and desperate indifference. She feared not pain, nor death: the harshest words occasioned her no humiliation: the scorn, the abhorrence of companions and friends, excited no other sentiment in her mind than disgust. Menaced by every one, she still forbore to yield, and boldly imploring if she were guilty, to be tried by the laws of her country—laws, which though she had transgressed, she revered, and would submit to, she defied the insolence, and malice of private interference. From this state, Calantha was at length aroused by the return of Lord Avondale. It has been said, that the severest pang to one not wholly hardened, is the unsuspicious confidence of the friend whom we have betrayed, the look of radiant health and joy which we never more must share, that eye of unclouded virtue, that smile of a heart at rest, and, worse than all perhaps, the soft confiding words and fond caresses offered after long absence. Cruel is such suffering. Such a pang Calantha had already once endured, when last she had parted from her lord; and for such meeting she was again prepared. She had been ill, and no one had read the secret of her soul. She had been lonely, and no one comforted her in her hours of solitude: she had once loved Lord Avondale, but absence and neglect had entirely changed her. She prepared therefore for the interview with cold indifference, and her pride disdained to crave his forgiveness, or to acknowledge itself undeserving in his presence. “He is no longer my husband,” she repeated daily to herself. “My heart and his are at variance—severed by inclination, though unhappily for both united by circumstances. Let him send me from him: I am desperate and care not.”