Lord Albert sought not to unbosom himself to Lord Glenmore, from a latent feeling that he was himself in error; and he had not had, for many a day, the courage, or rather the virtue, to probe his own conduct, but suffered the blindness of self-deception to gather like a cataract over his mental vision; he acted under the consciousness that he was to blame, yet without sufficient energy to attempt to dispel the film, and look on things as they really were. It may seem matter of surprise that Lord Glenmore, who lacked not penetration, had not openly spoken to his friend on the subject of his engagement with Lady Adeline: but while Lord Glenmore was happy himself, in that deep sense of the word in which it most imports us to be happy, the mazes of entanglement which gather around those who swerve from the path of rectitude entered not into his imagination. He had always pursued a straight-forward path, and truth and sincerity had given him a clue to pass through life without entering on any of those tortuous ways, such as now distracted his unhappy friend. This clear moral light of action rendered him, in the present instance, blind to the conduct of Lord Albert; and though the rumour was prevalent amongst the circle in which they lived, that his engagement with Lady Adeline was at an end, yet it had not reached Lord Glenmore's ear; and even had it done so, perhaps, from ignorance of Lady Adeline's merits, he might have thought that his friend's affections would be better bestowed elsewhere; but, at all events, he would have felt, that to mention the subject, while Lord Albert had made no allusion to it himself, would have been an indelicacy on his part. Thus was the former, from his own want of confidence, deprived of the only counsellor who might, by a word, have dispelled the mist of error which surrounded him; and by assisting Lord Albert to recover his self-esteem, have restored him to a happiness which was now eluding his grasp, if it had not already done so. Experience, however, must be bought. There is an ordeal to be passed through by every one. Happy are those who are purified seven times in the fire, and come forth humbled and ameliorated! However much Lord Albert's sufferings might have been unnoticed by the general eye, there was one who read his soul's secret but too plainly. Lady Hamlet Vernon saw through the veil of the false gaiety and forced spirits which he assumed; and again and again felt, with an impassioned woman's feelings, that the hour was come which was to decide her fate.