“I half agree with St. Aldegonde,” said Lothair, grumbling to himself, “that if one is to meet that Duke of Brecon every day at luncheon, for my part I had rather stay away.” In the course of the evening there also arrived invitations to all the impending balls and assemblies, for Lothair; and there seemed little prospect of his again being forced to dine with his faithful solicitor as a refuge from melancholy. On the morrow he went in his brougham to Crecy House, and he had such a palpitation of the heart when he arrived, that, for a moment, he absolutely thought he must retire. His mind was full of Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives, and the Sea of Galilee. He was never nervous there, never agitated, never harassed, no palpitations of the heart, no dread suspense. There was repose alike of body and soul. Why did he ever leave Palestine and Paraclete? He should have remained in Syria forever, cherishing, in a hallowed scene, a hallowed sorrow, of which even the bitterness was exalted and ennobling. He stood for a moment in the great hall at Crecy House, and the groom of the chambers in vain solicited his attention. It was astonishing how much passed through his mind while the great clock hardly described sixty seconds. But in that space he had reviewed his life, arrived at the conclusion that all was vanity and bitterness, that he had failed in every thing, was misplaced, had no object and no hope, and that a distant and unbroken solitude in some scene, where either the majesty of Nature was overwhelming, or its moral associations were equally sublime, must be his only refuge. In the meditation of the Cosmos, or in the divine reverie of sacred lands, the burden of existence might be endured. “Her grace is at luncheon, my lord,” at length said the groom of the chamber—and Lothair was ushered into the gay, and festive, and cordial scene. The number of the self-invited guests alone saved him. His confusion was absolute, and the duchess remarked afterward that Lothair seemed to have regained all his shyness. When Lothair had rallied and could survey the scene, he found he was sitting by his hostess; that the duke, not a luncheon man, was present, and, as it turned out afterward, for the pleasure of meeting Lothair. Bertram also was present, and several married daughters, and Lord Montairy, and Captain Mildmay, and one or two others; and next to Lady Corisande was the Duke of Brecon.