Subsequent dispatches from De Vallance heightened his distress. In a moment of extreme irritation, when, by long pondering on his own and the nation's wrongs, passion gained the ascendancy of judgement, Evellin in a confidential letter to Walter had anticipated with hope and exultation the fate that afterwards befell the Duke of Buckingham. A sermon of Dr. Beaumont's afterwards convinced him of the guiltiness of an expression, which, though proceeding from a sudden unweighed suggestion rather than a deliberate purpose, yet, certainly, as our church has well determined, proves "the infection of our nature, and has in it the nature of sin." Convinced that positive evil may not be committed to procure problematical good, and that no uninspired person should presume to think himself God's champion, unless placed in that station which visibly arms him with his authority, Evellin had often lamented this rash letter, as one of his secret faults. He now severely felt it also, as an imprudence, in having given vent to his angry feelings, even in a confidential communication. De Vallance informed him that, through a fatal mistake of his secretary, this very letter had been laid with some other papers, tending to prove him innocent of the death of Saville, and was thus put along with them into the King's hands by the Queen, who had graciously undertaken to plead for the brother of her favourite Lady Eleanor. No expiatory apology could be urged to weaken the effect of sentiments attested by his own writing, and they were obliged to yield him to the storm, as the King now declared that mercy would be compromising blood. Walter was in despair. Lady Eleanor still determined to watch for a favourable moment; they both continued his firm friends, and would punctually remit ample sums for his support, till some change in the state of affairs should again admit of their active interposition. How dreadful was Evellin's situation! Ruined by his own rashness, and restrained from a step, to which impatience of present suffering had long impelled him, namely to throw himself on the King's mercy, and either regain his birthright or forfeit his life! He was now a husband; he expected to be a father. Isabel must not be deserted in the hour of distress, and her life was bound up in his. She endured the change in her prospects with a cheerful serenity, that seemed as if she felt only the sorrows of her beloved. Nor did Dr. Beaumont betray any feeling which tended to shew that the expectation of stalls and mitres ever withdrew his thoughts from the celestial contemplations in which he loved to expatiate.