In this state of moral danger, had he confided to Lord Glenmore's ear the contradictory feelings by which he was alternately swayed, in him Lord Albert would have found a true friend; for he was not one of the many who pass by exultingly, in the ride, or indifference, or selfishness of their nature, and say, "You, too, are happy," careless of the reality, so long as the sunshine of their own amusement is not darkened by the sorrow they see another wear. No: Lord Glenmore would have not only commiserated, but counselled; not only counselled, but aided. Alas! we may suspect, that when we shrink from confiding our sorrows to a friend whom we know to be good and true, we are ourselves under some fatal delusion.
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.