"It was even while I lay grovelling at his feet," pursued Matilda, after a momentary pause, during which she evinced intense agitation, "that this sudden change (excited by this most unheard-of injustice) came over my mind--I rose and stood before him; then asked, in a voice in which no evidence of passion could be traced, what excuse he meant to make to Major Montgomerie for having thus broken off his engagement. He started at my sudden calmness of manner, but said that he thought it might be as well for my sake to name what I had already stated to him in regard to the obscurity of my birth, as a plea for his seceding from the connexion. I told him that, under all the circumstances, I thought this most advisable, and then, pointing to the door, bade him be gone, and never, under any pretext whatever, again to insult me with his presence. When he had departed, I burst into a paroxysm of tears; but they were tears shed not for the loss of him I now despised, but of wild sorrow at my unmerited degradation. That conflict over, the weakness had for ever passed away, and never, since that hour, has tear descended cheek of mine, associated with the recollection of the villain who had thus dared to trifle with a heart the full extent of whose passions he has yet to learn." There was a trembling of the whole person of Matilda which told how much her feelings had been excited by the recollection of what she narrated, and Gerald, as he gazed upon her beautiful form, could not but wonder at the apathy of the man who could thus have heartlessly thrown it from him for ever.