Oh that she had repulsed Philip on the instant when first he took her hand, as it had been in her heart to do!--but for the misery he showed that for the moment softened her. Mercy on such occasions is only cruel kindness, so she now thinks,--and has been her own undoing. And besides, what is his misery to hers? An intense bitterness, a positive hatred toward Shadwell, who has brought all this discord into her hitherto happy life, grows within her, filling her with a most unjust longing to see him as wretched as he has unwittingly made her; while yet she shrinks with ever-increasing reluctance from the thought that soon she must bring herself to look again upon his dark but handsome face. Luttrell, too,--she must meet him; and, with such swollen eyes and pallid cheeks, the bare idea brings a little color into her white face. As eight o'clock strikes, she rises languidly from her bed, dressed as she is, disrobing hurriedly, lest even her woman should guess how wakeful she had been, throws open her window, and lets the pure cold air beat upon her features. But when Sarah comes she is not deceived. So distressed is she at her young mistress's appearance that she almost weeps aloud, and gives it as her opinion that balls and all such nocturnal entertainments are the invention of the enemy. CHAPTER XXV. "Ah, starry hope, that didst arise But to be overcast!" --Edgar A. Poe. "The ring asunder broke." --_German Song._ At breakfast Molly is very pale, and speaks little. She toys with her toast, but cannot eat. Being questioned, she confesses herself fatigued, not being accustomed to late hours. She neither looks at Luttrell, nor does he seek to attract her attention in any way. "A good long walk will refresh you more than anything," says Talbot Lowry, who has been spending the past few days at Herst. He addresses Molly, but his eyes seek Cecil's as he does so, in the fond hope that she will take his hint and come with him for a similar refresher to that he has prescribed for Molly. Cecil's unfortunate encouragement of the night before--displayed more with a view to chagrining Sir Penthony than from a mere leaning toward coquetry--has fanned his passion to a very dangerous height. He is consumed with a desire to speak, and madly flatters himself that there is undoubted hope for him. To throw himself at Lady Stafford's feet, declare his love, and ask her to leave, for him, a husband who has never been more to her than an ordinary acquaintance, and to renounce a name that can have no charms for her, being devoid of tender recollections or sacred memories, seems to him, in his present over-strained condition, a very light thing indeed. In return, he argues feverishly, he can give her the entire devotion of a heart, and, what is perhaps a more practical offer, a larger income than she can now command.