.’

‘I’ve done that already, while you were reading the letter, and before you came; and the carriage is now coming round to the door.’

Inly approving his promptitude, I bade him good-morning, and withdrew.  He gave me a searching glance as we pressed each other’s hands at parting; but whatever he sought in my countenance, he saw there nothing but the most becoming gravity—it might be mingled with a little sternness in momentary resentment at what I suspected to be passing in his mind.

Had I forgotten my own prospects, my ardent love, my pertinacious hopes?  It seemed like sacrilege to revert to them now, but I had not forgotten them.  It was, however, with a gloomy sense of the darkness of those prospects, the fallacy of those hopes, and the vanity of that affection, that I reflected on those things as I remounted my horse and slowly journeyed homewards.  Mrs. Huntingdon was free now; it was no longer a crime to think of her—but did she ever think of me?  Not now—of course it was not to be expected—but would she when this shock was over?  In all the course of her correspondence with her brother (our mutual friend, as she herself had called him) she had never mentioned me but once—and that was from necessity.  This alone afforded strong presumption that I was already forgotten; yet this was not the worst: it might have been her sense of duty that had kept her silent: she might be only trying to forget; but in addition to this, I had a gloomy conviction that the awful realities she had seen and felt, her reconciliation with the man she had once loved, his dreadful sufferings and death, must eventually efface from her mind all traces of her passing love for me.  She might recover from these horrors so far as to be restored to her former health, her tranquillity, her cheerfulness even—but never to those feelings which would appear to her, henceforth, as a fleeting fancy, a vain, illusive dream; especially as there was no one to remind her of my existence—no means of assuring her of my fervent constancy, now that we were so far apart, and delicacy forbade me to see her or to write to her, for months to come at least.  And how could I engage her brother in my behalf? how could I break that icy crust of shy reserve?  Perhaps he would disapprove of my attachment now as highly as before; perhaps he would think me too poor—too lowly born, to match with his sister.  Yes, there was another barrier: doubtless there was a
