Lady Mary left the room as she uttered these words. Her son was deeply struck with his mother’s eloquence: he knew she was right, yet his pride was wounded by the peremptory severity of her manner:--his remorse and his good resolutions gave place to anger. The more he felt himself in the wrong, the less he could bear to be reproached by the voice of authority. Even because his mother _commanded_ him to give up all connexion with Mrs. Wharton, he was inclined to disobey--he could not bear to seem to do right merely in compliance to her will. He went to visit Mrs. Wharton in a very different temper from that in which, half an hour before this conference with his mother, he had resolved to see the lady. Mrs. Wharton knew how to take advantage both of the weakness of his character and of the generosity of his temper. She fell into transports of grief when she found that Lady Mary Vivian and Miss Sidney were in possession of her secret. It was in vain that Vivian assured her that it would be kept inviolably; she persisted in repeating, “that her reputation was lost; that she had sacrificed every thing for a man who would, at last, desert her in the most treacherous and barbarous manner, leaving her at the mercy of her husband, the most profligate, hard-hearted tyrant upon earth. As to her being reconciled to him,” she declared, “_that_ was totally out of the question; his behaviour to her was such, that she could not live with him, even if her heart were not fatally prepossessed in favour of another.” Her passions seemed wrought to the highest pitch. With all the eloquence of beauty in distress, she appealed to Vivian as her only friend; she threw herself entirely upon his protection; she vowed that she could not, would not, remain another day in the same house with Mr. Wharton; that her destiny, her existence, were at Vivian’s mercy. Vivian had not sufficient fortitude to support this scene. He stood irresolute. The present temptation prevailed over his better resolutions. He was actually persuaded by this woman, whom he did not love, whom he could not esteem, to carry her off to the continent--whilst, at the very time, he admired, esteemed, and loved another. The plan of the elopement was formed and settled in a few minutes;--on Mrs. Wharton’s part, apparently with all the hurry of passion; on Vivian’s with all the confusion of despair. The same carriage, the very same horses, that had been ordered to carry our hero to his beloved Selina, conveyed him and Mrs. Wharton the first stage of their flight towards the continent. The next morning the following paragraph appeared in the newspapers:--