I played with disgust, and without attention, every minute wishing to break away. Coffee was at length brought in; I begged to be excused from staying, telling Mrs Gerrarde, I was sure I prevented her from going abroad, but she would take no denial. I was constrained to take a dish of coffee, and was hastening to get it down when the parlour door flew open, and lo! Mr Faulkland entered the room. If an object the most horrible to human nature had appeared before me, it could not, at that instant, have shocked me half so much. I let the cup and saucer drop from my hand: to say I turned pale, trembled and was ready to faint, would be too feeble a description of the effect this spectre had on me. I was senseless, I almost died away. Mrs Gerrarde pretended to be greatly alarmed; she ran for drops, and having given me a few in a glass of water, I made a shift to rise off my chair, and telling her, I should be glad of a little air, tottered to the street door. I determined to go home directly, but the universal tremor I was now in, disabled me from walking, and I sat down in the porch to recover myself a little. Mr Faulkland's having been a witness to the agony his presence had thrown me into, did not a little aggravate the horror and confusion of my thoughts. Whatever _his_ were, he had not spoke to me, nor was it possible for me to have remarked his behaviour: I staid not more than two minutes in the parlour after he entered. In this situation you will think my distress would hardly admit of any addition; but the final blow was yet to come. Mrs Gerrarde had staid a minute in the parlour to speak to Mr Faulkland after I went out, but presently followed me, and was soothing me with the kindest expressions, when I heard the trampling of horses, and presently beheld Mr Arnold alighting at the door. I now gave myself up for lost. My mind suddenly suggested to me that Mrs Gerrarde had contrived a plot upon my innocence; but how she had been able to bring it about, my thoughts were not then disengaged enough to conceive. My mind was all a chaos; I was not able to answer Mr Arnold when he spoke to me. He soon perceived my disorder, and enquired the cause. Mrs Gerrarde took upon her to answer, that I was just preparing to go home, when I was taken suddenly ill. I was going abroad, said she, and as I ordered the chariot much about this hour, I fancy it is ready, and may as well carry Mrs Arnold home; you had best step into the parlour, my dear, (to me) till it is brought to the door.