Such were the false reasonings with which Lady Hamlet Vernon justified her feelings and her conduct to herself, and under their sway, she awaited with the utmost anxiety and impatience for Lord D'Esterre on the following morning. But it was late before he came, and he was abstracted and silent when he did arrive; unlike the animated being whom she had witnessed speaking to her with such force and expression of lively feeling on the previous evening. The fact is, Lord Albert D'Esterre had been at Lady Dunmelraise's, where he had found Adeline alone; and as, in her converse and presence, there was a soothing calm, a persuasive assurance, even in her silence, of her perfect purity and truth, those feelings of jealous doubt and mistrust that had preyed upon him before his visit to her, had gradually subsided while under the influence of her immediate power. Above all, the interest she expressed for him, the alarm she declared she felt on beholding his haggard look, and suddenly changed appearance, awoke in his breast all those tender feelings which it was a second nature for him to cherish towards her. He felt indeed that he could have laid his head on her breast, confessed his folly, and wept out his fault in having for a moment suspected her; "but then again," he thought, "it will be time enough thus to humble myself when I see proof that my suspicions are indeed groundless; and I shall not be acting up to my resolution, if I allow a moment of tenderness to put it out of my power to certify the truth of her's." Mr. Foley's name was not once mentioned during his visit. Mr. Foley did not appear; and for the time Lord Albert D'Esterre felt happy. "We shall see," he said to himself, "if this fair shew is real; a short time will serve to prove its truth, and then my happiness will stand on a secure basis."