But again the necessity of some answer pressed upon him; and, although with the conviction that none which he could write at that moment would be adequate to express what he felt, or prove a faithful interpreter of the thousand tortures that possessed him, he finally traced and folded up a few brief sentences, sealing the envelope immediately, as if to preclude the possibility of further delay. Yet once more he hesitated, once more a wish arose to write altogether in a different tone and strain; but then he rapidly recalled to his aid all his late reasonings and feelings on the subject, and finally despatched the following letter: "Dear Lady Dunmelraise, "It would be doing injustice to my own feelings, if I did not state that they alone have prevented my answering your letter sooner; the purpose and tenor of which made me too plainly feel, that any development of the sufferings called forth by its contents would be equally misplaced and obtrusive to you, as well as to Lady Adeline. "To say that any emotion of _surprise_ has mingled with my sorrow would be contrary to truth, because I had felt the sudden and unexpected departure of your ladyship from London (not even communicated to me till your present letter) announced some decided change in your opinion and determinations in regard to myself. There is one point, however, for which, in the midst of all my sufferings, I must feel grateful: it is, that the letter which announces to me the forfeiture of that happiness which for years I have been taught to cherish and consider as my own, leaves me no doubt that the future welfare of Lady Adeline now centres in some other object, in the attainment of which it will be more surely realized, than had it continued to rest on me. That that welfare may be realized in every sense of the word will ever be the prayer of, "Dear Lady Dunmelraise, "Your faithful and affectionate servant, "D'ESTERRE." "P. S. I shall of course communicate your letter, accompanied by my answer, to my father, Lord Tresyllian." No sooner was this letter beyond the power of Lord Albert's recall, and actually on the way to Dunmelraise, than he would have given every thing he possessed could he have changed its tenor: but this was only one of those fluctuations of passion, of which he had of late been so cruelly the sport; and the impulse of the moment, had its object been attained, would as readily have given place to some other of a quite different tendency. When the mind is once suffered to float about without a guiding principle of action, it is a mercy and a miracle if the being thus actuated does not become the prey of destruction.