"Died suddenly at the inn at the Mola di Gaeta, on her way from Naples, Clorinda, the wife of the honourable Horatio Saville, in the twenty-second year of her age." Her drawing-room door was opened, the butler announced Miss Derham, while her eyes still were fixed on the paragraph: her head swam round--the world seemed to slide from under her. Fanny's calm clear voice recalled her. She conquered her agitation--she spoke as if she had not just crossed a gulf--not been transported to a new world; and, again, swifter than light, brought back to the old one. She conversed with Fanny for some time; giving some kind of explanation for not having been to see Ethel, begging her young friend to press her invitation, and speaking as if in autumn they should all meet again. Fanny, philosophic as she was, regarded Lady Lodore with a kind of idolatry. The same charm that had fascinated the unworldly and abstracted Saville, she exercised over the thoughtful and ingenuous mind of the fair young student. It was the attraction of engaging manners, added now to the sense of right, joined to the timid softness of a woman, who trembled on acting unsupported, even though her conscience approved her deeds. It was her loveliness which had gained in expression what it had lost in youth, and kindness of heart was the soul of the enchantment. Fanny ventured to remonstrate against her sudden departure. "O we shall soon meet again," said Cornelia; but her thoughts were more of heaven than earth, as the scene of meeting; for her heart was chilled--her head throbbed--the words she had read operated a revolution in her frame, more allied to sickness and death, than hope or triumph. Fanny at length took her leave, and Lady Lodore was again alone. She took up the newspaper--hastily she read again the tidings; she sunk on the sofa, burying her face in the pillow, trying not to think, while she was indeed the prey to the wildest thoughts. "Yes," thus ran her reflections, "he is free--he is no longer _married_! Fool, fool! he is still lost to you!--an outcast and a beggar, shall I solicit his love! which he believes that I rejected when prosperous. Rather never, never, let me see him again. My beauty is tarnished, my youth flown; he would only see me to wonder how he had ever loved me. Better hide beneath the mountains among which I am soon to find a home--better, far better, die, than see Saville and read no love in his eyes.