Unwilling as Laura was to quit her friends, she did not delay to comply with Lady Pelham's requisition. Mrs De Courcy judged it improper to urge her to stay; and Montague in part consoled himself for her departure, by reflecting, that he would now be at liberty to disclose his long-concealed secret. 'No doubt you are at liberty,' said Mrs De Courcy, when he spoke to her of his intentions, 'and I am far from pretending to advise or interfere. But, my dear Montague, you must neither be surprised, nor in despair, if you be at first unsuccessful. Though Laura esteems you, perhaps more than esteems you, she is convinced that she is invulnerable to love; and it may be so, but her fancied security is all in your favour.' Weary of suspense, however, De Courcy often resolved to know his fate; and often went to Walbourne, determined to learn ere he returned, whether a circle of pleasing duties was to fill his after life, or whether it was to be spent alone, 'loveless, joyless, unendeared;' but when he met the friendly smile of Laura, and remembered that, his secret told, it might vanish like the gleaming of a wintry sun, his courage failed, and the intended disclosure was again delayed. Yet his manner grew less and less equivocal, and Laura, unwilling as she was to own the conviction to herself, could scarcely maintain her wilful blindness. She allowed the subject to occupy the more of her thoughts, because it came disguised in a veil of self-condemnation and humility. Sometimes she repeated to herself, that she should never have known the vanity of her own heart, had it not been visited by so absurd a suspicion; and sometimes that she should never have been acquainted with its selfishness and obduracy, had she not borne with such indifference, the thoughts of what must bring pain and disappointment to so worthy a breast. But, spite of Laura's efforts to be miserable, the subject cost her much more perplexity than distress; and, in wondering whether De Courcy really were her lover, and what could be his motive for concealing it if he were, she often forgot to deplore the consequences of her charms.