That night her eyes in vain glanced over the words, they conveyed no corresponding ideas to her mind. She imagined long conversations and explanations; she fancied reproaches, excuses, she pictured penitence and sorrow. She convinced herself that, when Lord Montreville examined his letters, and found this one opened, he would be overwhelmed with shame and self-reproach, and that he would throw himself on her mercy. She considered how it would then be her duty to act; she consulted her own heart whether she should then be able to restore him to the same place in her affections. She tried to lower her standard of manly excellence; she tried to frame to herself a less exalted scale of morals. Alas! is not this but too likely an error to fall into, as the frailties and follies of human nature open upon the young and gentle, to whom it is painful to condemn and despise their fellow-creatures? END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. VOLUME THE SECOND. CHAPTER XII. Les gens vertueux sont rares, mais ceux qui estiment la vertu ne le sont pas; d’autant moins qu’il y a mille occasions dans la vie, où l’on a absolument besoin des personnes qui en ont.—_Marivaux._ Lord Montreville recovered slowly, but satisfactorily. The doctor, the servants, Milly, all on different occasions, and in different manners, conveyed to his mind an impression of Lucy’s unceasing attention to him during his illness. Indeed, the old doctor had imbibed such an enthusiastic admiration for Lady Montreville’s unpresuming, frank, and affectionate character, that he could scarcely speak of her without tears in his eyes. Lord Montreville found his gratitude daily increase his affection; and when she brought him his child whose caresses and opening intelligence awoke in him emotions from as yet unexplored recesses of his heart, his love for his wife assumed a new character, and he felt for her as he had never yet felt for woman. He had hitherto seldom considered them in any light but as a mistress, a plaything, a necessary appendage to a large house and an establishment, or an object of conquest, either gained or to be gained. He had thought absence of harm, their highest recommendation. In Lucy he had first discovered that strong affections, strength of mind, patience, and perseverance could be perfectly compatible with almost childish candour, and singleness of heart. While this revolution had taken place in Lord Montreville’s feelings, what were Lucy’s? The increased tenderness of his manner perplexed and confounded her. At moments, especially when her husband was playing with her boy, and watching with delight his attempts to walk, marking his recognition of familiar objects, and listening to the first half-uttered lispings of infancy, she almost yielded to her longing desire to be happy and affectionate, when the thought of Alicia Mowbray shot through her heart, and chilled the kindly smile on her lip, the soft expression of her eye, the tender intonation of her voice.