Such were the bitter reflections that passed through his mind. And yet, in the face of these reflections, at the very moment that his disappointment pressed upon him most severely--even while he was thinking, every now and then, that the opposition to his wishes was unkind and unreasonable, his paternal heart bled for his child. He imagined her looking on the wreck of her bright dreams of promise--on lofty hopes overthrown, and deep aspirations stifled; and he saw her, as the ruin still confronted her, become paralysed at the view, and overwhelmed with the terrors of despair. All his own energy was depressed and lost. In his inability to sway his child, he felt as though, in reality, he was no longer master of himself. His disposition had suddenly undergone an entire and radical change, and he now seemed, instead of being a man of thought and action, to be a mere creature of circumstance, and quite at the command of any influence that might approach him. He was still meditating on his disappointment, when he was joined by Don Felix. That person, finding him alone, inquired the result of his conversation with Evaline, which he knew had concerned himself, with affected eagerness, although, if the truth must be told, he very well understood that there was no chance of its being favourable. Sir Edgar’s reply, informing him of Evaline’s determination not to wed him, appeared to overwhelm him with affliction, and, though no more than he had expected, did really fill him with the most bitter rage. Still, however, he did not despair of one day achieving revenge. In deference to Sir Edgar, he forbore to press the subject at that moment, but he looked forward, in his heart, to a time when he might successfully recur to it, and pursue it to a triumphant issue. Even at the passing time, indeed, he did not virtually neglect it; but by frequent piteous sighs, and his melancholy and dejected aspect, which beamed with pious resignation, urged his suit on Sir Edgar with unremitted assiduity. Meantime, Evaline had shut herself up in her own chamber. On first entering it, she threw herself on her knees, at her bedside; and there, leaning forward, buried her face in her hands. And what did she pray for? Could she suppose, on looking out on the stupendous creation, which is too vast for human thought to review, that so insignificant an atom as she could appeal against and arrest the course of events, and draw from Heaven miraculous succour? What, though even the hairs of her head were all numbered--what, though the supreme Disposer, who planted and moved every source and spring of action, had called himself her Father--what, though he had himself said, “Come unto ME, ye heavy-laden,”--was it to be thought, by any sane and reasonable being, that He would recall the past, and obliterate realized events, on her petition?