Ponsonby had affected me with his more than usual melancholy, and, when I was about to take my leave, I felt that I could not speak; but I kissed his hand eagerly and fervently, as he was hurrying out of the coach.... I have never seen him from that hour. On the following evening, while I was expecting Ponsonby, I received a letter from him, the purport of which was to inform me that we had parted for ever. * * * * * I remember little of the style or nature of the letter. Something I read about a discovery made by Lady Ponsonby, and a solemn engagement or promise extorted from him, to see me only once more, in which interview he had intended to have explained and arranged everything; but could not. The perusal of this letter occasioned a mist to come over my eyes, my heart seemed to swell so as almost to produce suffocation: and yet I did not believe it to be possible that we could have parted for the last time, or surely my anguish had burst forth in one wild cry and then all had been still for ever! But hope was not yet extinct. I felt stunned, more by the sudden shock of such an idea being presented to my imagination as possible, than from conviction of its probability. "Dreadful!" thought I, and shuddered, while I felt a cold dew as from the charnel-house overspread my whole frame, "shall Ponsonby refuse to speak to me, and even look upon me as a stranger, after all our communion of feeling, after all that deep interest which he evinced towards me so late as this very morning? Nonsense! palpable, gross absurdity! How I have been frightening myself! As if it were in human nature to be so cruel even to one's greatest enemy! And Ponsonby's nature is so kind!" and then a violent hysterical affection steeped my senses in forgetfulness and relieved for an instant the bitter anguish of my heart. Then I suddenly recollected his parting kiss. Gracious God! could he have left me? My brain seemed absolutely on fire. I flew to the window, where for years I had been in the habit of watching his approach. "It is not high enough," thought I, "and would but half destroy me. I will go to him first," and my trembling hands essayed in vain to fasten the ribbons of my bonnet under my chin: "but no, no, I will not risk her happiness. I am not really wicked, not so very wicked as to deserve this dreadful calamity. We are sent into the world to endure the evils of it patiently, and not thus to fly into the face of our God. If he is our father, and I kneel down to him with patience, this anguish will be calmed."