At last the company rose from the breakfast table, and as Lady Hamlet took Lord Albert's arm, and walked out on the terrace under the window, she said, "This is kind of you to have listened to my request:" and then as they walked from the house, proceeded in a graver tone to add, "I am aware, dear Lord Albert, that my note of last night must have surprised you, and that the subject connected with it, on which I am about to touch, is one of the utmost delicacy, and one which upon the very verge of the attempt I shrink from; but you have evinced so much real interest in the state of my wayward mind, and have said so much to me with a view, I am certain, of placing my happiness on a more secure and steady foundation than I had ever any chance of before, that I should be ungrateful in the extreme, if a corresponding wish for your comfort in life did not in turn actuate me. I cannot be ignorant of the engagement between yourself and Lady Adeline Seymour, the fulfilment of which will not, I presume, be long delayed; unless, indeed--" Here Lady Hamlet Vernon's voice faltered, and for a moment she paused; but, as if making an effort to subdue her emotion, she added in a lower and firmer tone, and with an expression of something like intreaty in her countenance as she looked up at Lord Albert, "Unless I, dear Lord Albert, shall prove the happy instrument of saving you from too precipitate a step in this matter. May I continue to speak to you thus unreservedly?" Lord Albert made no answer, but bowed his head in token of assent, while he walked by her side like one lost in a perturbed dream. She continued, "I wished, before you went, for this opportunity, because I was aware that it was the only one left in which what I am about to impart would ever be of use; for, lovely as Lady Adeline is, possessed of charms of person which would indeed draw any heart towards her, of the warmest and most enthusiastic disposition, deeply enamoured of _you_ as well as sacredly alive to her engagement to you (and I know her, from a source which cannot mislead me, in person, in mind, in heart, and in determination, to be all that I describe to you)--how could even your judgment, Lord Albert, which is stronger than many of twice your years, but yield to such united influence, and be tempted to decide at the moment on making so much perfection irrevocably your own. But with all these transcendant charms of person and of character, Lady Adeline, I am grieved to say, and know, has been unhappily betrayed into views of life and of the world, which must unfit her to be the partner of any one who does not think in accordance with her on these subjects. From what cause or under what influence the peculiar turn of mind she has taken has arisen, I know not, but (and again I must repeat, that I _know_ the too-sure truth of all I say) it has been gradually and fearfully on the increase, and is now become a fixed principle with her.