 she possessed not the power
of steady reflection, and when the sad reality was obliterated by wild
and imaginary horrors.

[Footnote 1: Without fear and without reproach.]







Some few days elapsed before there was any great alteration for the
better in Lady Adelina. But the incessant attention of her friends, the
soothing pity of her brother, and the skill of her physician, slowly
conquered the lurking fever which had so long hung about her; and her
intellects, tho' still disordered at times, were more collected, and
gave reason to hope that she would soon entirely recover.

In the mean time Captain Godolphin communicated to Mrs. Stafford the
resolution he had taken about his sister. He said that she should
renounce for ever all claim on the Trelawny estate, except only the
stipend settled on her as a consideration for the fortune she was to
receive at the death of the dowager Lady Westhaven, and which was only
three hundred a year; a sum which he thought made her but a paltry and
inadequate compensation for having passed two years in the society of
such a man as Trelawny.

He added, that he had a house in the Isle of Wight (almost all the
patrimony his father had been able to give him,) where, as his ship was
now out of commission, he proposed residing himself; and whither he
should insist upon Lady Adelina's retiring, without any future attempt
to see or correspond with Fitz-Edward.

As to the child, he asked if Mrs. Stafford would have the goodness to
see that it was taken care of at some cottage in her neighbourhood,
'till he could adjust matters with the Trelawny family, and put an end
to all those fears which might tempt them to enquire into it's birth;
after which he said he would take it to his own house, and call it a son
of his own; a precaution that would throw an obscurity over the truth
which would hardly ever be removed, when none were particularly
interested to remove it.

These designs he desired Mrs. Stafford to communicate to Lady Adelina;
and as she was obliged to return home in two days, she took the earliest
opportunity of doing so.

To the conditions her brother offered, Lady Adelina thought herself most
happy to consent. The little boy was immediately baptized by the name of
William Godolphin, and his unfortunate mother now began to flatter
herself that her disastrous history might be concealed even from her
elder brother, Lord Westhaven; of whose indignation and resentment she
had ever the most alarming apprehensions. But while the hope of
escaping them by her brother William'
