"I remain, my dear Lord Albert D'Esterre,
"P. S. I forward a copy of my letter to Lord Tresyllian by this post."
"It is then as I thought," exclaimed Lord Albert. "Faithless, treacherous, cold-hearted Adeline! why did I ever love you? Why place my happiness on so frail, so unworthy a tenure? But it is well; it is better thus. Since I have now no cause to mourn your loss, I will not suffer grief for such an object to master me. It is well that you are lost to me. Lost!"--he started at the sound, as he repeated, "Yes, lost to me for ever!" and his lip trembled, while a sense of suffocation oppressed and overpowered him, and tears, burning tears, burst from his eyes. Not softly, not refreshingly, did they flow, but like the lava's flood, which scathes the path down which it courses. For two days and two nights Lord Albert remained in the most pitiable state of mind. He would see no one, for to whom could he unburthen his griefs? and not to speak of them was impossible: to whom would he deign to show his lacerated heart? yet to what other subject than that by which it was torn could he give utterance?
The necessity of replying to Lady Dunmelraise's letter was the first thing that aroused him from this lethargy of sorrow; but when he essayed the task, he found it one of no easy nature. He read and _re-read_ the letter; he endeavoured to extract from it some gleam of hope, some opening of possible change; but it was so calm, so cuttingly and despairingly reasonable, so dignified yet so decided in its tone, so meek yet so authoritative, that he felt it pronounced a verdict which admitted of no appeal.
"Be it so," he said, with the composure of despair; "but, at least, I too will speak my mind. Yet how? In a brief answer embody a world of thought? How can words convey the sense of a broken heart? No! language cannot do that. And if it could paint my feelings, why should I humble myself before those who have thus sported with and spurned them? why lay bare the weakness of my heart to those who have proved themselves incapable of compassion? What can I expect to gain by so doing? Nothing."
Blinded by this false reasoning, he felt, at that moment, that he would have rejected Lady Adeline's hand, could he have gained it; convinced, as he was, that her affections were no longer his own. Besides, who ever reclaimed or regained a heart by reproaches? And then again relapsing into tenderness, he mourned over the defalcation of that purity and truth which he had worshipped even more than her charms. All these, and more than these, were the thoughts which checked the flow of Lord Albert's pen as he wrote copy after copy in answer to the letter, and tore each, in despair of ever writing one which could in any degree comprise or convey his mixed and agonized feelings.