"It is not for myself I mourn--it is not the threatened loss of your society, however much I value it, which has occasioned my being so overpowered--it is the knowledge of a secret which pertains to another, and in which your fate is involved, that has quite mastered me--this much I must tell you. I must see you before you go, I must prepare you for your meeting with Lady Adeline Seymour." Twenty times he read over this note. "What can it mean? can its meaning be that Adeline loves Mr. Foley, at least that he thinks so? and I, what have I been doing? into what a sea of troubles have I plunged for the enjoyment of the society of a person that in fact affords me none--for the empty speculation of recalling the chaotic mind of one (comparatively a stranger to me) to a sense of reason and religion, fool that I was for the attempt." Then, after a considerable pause, and after deep reflection, he burst forth:
"Prepare _me_ for a meeting with Adeline!" as his eye caught again the last line of the note. "_Prepare me for a meeting with Adeline_--I cannot bear the phrase; but I must know what she means--I must drag this secret from her:"--and he rang the bell violently!--"I shall not want my horses till one o'clock instead of seven to-morrow morning."
The night Lord Albert passed was one of feverish anxiety. He sent to inquire for Lady Hamlet Vernon at an early hour the next day; and hearing she was much recovered, he besought her to grant the interview she had done him the favour to offer as soon as she possibly could. She replied, that in that house it would be reckoned a breach of all decorum, if she received him at any undue hour; but that as soon as the earliest part of the company breakfasted, which was about one o'clock, she would be sure, notwithstanding her indisposition, to be in the breakfast-room at that time; when she would avail herself of some opportunity to give him the information which had come to her knowledge. This short delay seemed an age to him. Every one knows, when suspense agitates the mind, what a total anarchy ensues, and the hours which intervened before meeting Lady Hamlet Vernon seemed to Lord Albert interminable. When they _did_ meet, the intervening moments ere an opportunity occurred of Lord Albert's drawing her aside, appeared in their turn so many more ages of suffering.