"I intrude on you, Lady Tinemouth!" said Mary, observing her looks, and withdrawing from the offered seat.

"No, my dear Miss Beaufort," replied she, "I am glad you are come. I a.s.sure you I have few pleasures in solitude. Read that letter," added she, putting one into her hand: "it has just conveyed one of the cruelest stabs ever offered by a son to the heart of his mother. Read it, and you will not be surprised at finding me in the state you see."

The countess looked on her almost paralyzed hands as she spoke; and Miss Beaufort taking the paper, sat down and read to herself the following letter:

TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE COUNTESS OF TINEMOUTH.

"Madam,

"I am commissioned by the earl, my father, to inform you that if you have lost all regard for your own character, he considers that some respect is due to the mother of his children; therefore he watches your conduct.

"He has been apprized of your frequent meetings, during these many months past, in Grosvenor Place, and at other people's houses, with an obscure foreigner, your declared lover. The earl wished to suppose this false, until your shameless behavior became so flagrant, that he esteems it worthy neither of doubt nor indulgence.

"With his own eyes he saw you four nights ago alone with this man in Hyde Park. Such demonstration is dreadful. Your proceedings are abominable; and if you do not, without further parley, set off either to Craighall, in Cornwall, or to the Wolds, you shall receive a letter from my sister as well as myself, to tell the dishonored Lady Tinemouth how much she merits her daughter's contempt, added to that of her brother.

"HARWOLD."

Mary was indeed heart-struck at the contents of this letter, but most especially at the accusation which so distinctly pointed out the innocent object of her already doubly-excited pity. "Oh! why these persecutions," cried her inward soul to heaven, "against an apparently obscure but n.o.ble, friendless stranger?" Unable to collect her thoughts to make any proper remarks whatever on the letter to Lady Tinemouth, she hastily exclaimed, "It is indeed horrible; and what do you mean to do, my honored friend?"

"I will obey my lord!" returned the countess, with a meek but firm emphasis. "My last action will be in obedience to his will. I cannot live long; and when I am dead, perhaps the earl's vigilance may be satisfied; perhaps some kind friend may then plead my cause to my daughter's heart. One cruel line from her would kill me. I will at least avoid the completion of that threat, by leaving town to-morrow night."

"What! so soon? But I hope not so far as Cornwall?"

"No," replied her ladyship; "Craighall is too near Plymouth; I determine on the Wolds. Yet why should I have a choice? It is almost a matter of indifference to what spot I am banished--in what place I am to die; anywhere to which my earthly lord would send me, I shall be equally remote from the sympathy of a friend."

Miss Beaufort's heart was oppressed when she entered the room! Lady Tinemouth's sorrows seemed to give her a license to weep. She took her ladyship's hand, and with difficulty sobbed out this inarticulate proposal:--"Take me with you, dear Lady Tinemouth! I am sure my guardian will be happy to permit me to be with you, where and how long you please."

"My dear young friend," replied the countess, kissing her tearful cheek, "I thank you from my heart; but I cannot take so ungenerous an advantage of your goodness as to consign your tender nature to the hara.s.sing task of attending on sorrow and sickness. How strangely different may even amiable dispositions be tempered! Sophia Egerton is better framed for such an office. Kind as she is, the hilarity of her disposition does nor allow the sympathy she bestows on others to injure either her mind or her body."

Mary interrupted her. "Ah! I should be grieved to believe that my very apt.i.tude to serve my friends will prove the first reason why I should be denied the duty. It is only in scenes of affliction that friendship can be tried, and declare its truth. If Miss Egerton were not going with you, I should certainly insist on putting my affection to the ordeal.'

"You mistake, my sweet friend." returned her ladyship; "Sophia is forbidden to remain any longer with me. You have overlooked the postscript to Lord Harwold's letter, else you must have seen the whole of my cruel situation. Turn over the leaf."

Miss Beaufort re-opened the sheet, and read the following few lines, which, being written on the interior part of the paper, had before escaped her sight:--

"Go where you will, it is our special injunction that you leave Miss Egerton behind you. She, we hear, has been the amba.s.sadress in this intrigue. If we learn that you disobey, it shall be worse for you in every respect, as it will convince us, beyond a possibility of doubt, how uniform is the turpitude of your conduct."

Lady Tinemouth grasped Miss Beaufort's hand when she laid the matricidal letter back upon the table. "And that is from the son for whom I felt all a mother's throes--all a mother's love!--Had he died the first hour in which he saw the light, what a ma.s.s of guilt might he not have escaped! It is he," added she, in a lower voice, and looking wildly round, "that breaks my heart. I could have borne his father's perfidy; but insult, oppression, from my child! Oh, Mary, may you never know its bitterness!"

Miss Beaufort could only answer with her tears.

After a pause of many minutes, in which the countess strove to tranquillize her spirits, she resumed in a more composed voice.

"Excuse me for an instant, my dear Miss Beaufort; I must write to Mr.

Constantine. I have yet to inform him that my absence is to be added to his other misfortunes."

With her eyes now raining down upon the paper, she took up a pen and hastily writing a few lines, was sealing them when Mary, looking up, hardly conscious of the words which escaped her, said, with inarticulate anxiety, "Lady Tinemouth, you know much of that n.o.ble and unhappy young man?" Her eyes irresolute and her cheek glowing, she awaited the answer of the countess, who continued to gaze on the letter she held in her hand, as if in profound thought; then all at once raising her head, and regarding the now downcast face of her lovely friend with tenderness, she replied, in a tone which conveyed the deep interest of her thoughts:--

"I do, Miss Beaufort; but he has reposed his griefs in my friendship and honor, therefore I must hold them sacred."

"I will not ask you to betray them," returned Mary, in a faltering voice; "yet I cannot help lamenting his sufferings, and I esteeming the fort.i.tude with which he supports his fall."

The countess looked steadfastly on her fluctuating countenance. "Has Constantine, my dear girl, hinted to you that he ever was otherwise than as he now appears?"

Miss Beaufort could not reply. She would not trust her lips with words, but shook her head in sign that he had not. Lady Tinemouth was too well read in the human heart to doubt for an instant the cause of her question, and consequent emotion. Feeling that something was due to an anxiety so disinterested, she took her pa.s.sive hand, and said, "Mary, you have guessed rightly. Though I am not authorized to tell you the real name of Mr. Constantine, nor the particulars of his history, yet let this satisfy your generous heart, that it can never be more honorably employed than in compa.s.sionating calamities which ought to wreath his young brows with glory."

Miss Beaufort's eyes streamed afresh, whilst her exulting soul seemed ready to rush from her bosom.

"Mary!" continued the countess, wanned by the recollection of his excellence, "you have no need to blush at the interest which you take in this amiable stranger! Every trial of spirit which could have tortured youth or manhood has been endured by him with the firmness of a hero. Ah, my sweet friend," added the countess, pressing the hand of the confused Miss Beaufort, who, ashamed, and conscious that her behavior betrayed how dearly she considered him, had covered her face with her handkerchief, "when you are disposed to believe that a man is as great as his t.i.tles and personal demands seem to a.s.sert, examine with a nice observance whether his pretensions be real or artificial. Imagine him disrobed of splendor and struggling with the world's inclemencies. If his character cannot stand this ordeal, he is only a vain pageant, inflated and garnished; and it is reasonable to punish such arrogance with contempt. But on the contrary, when, like Constantine, he rises from the ashes of his fortunes in a brighter blaze of virtue, then, dearest girl," cried the countess, encircling her with her arms, "it is the sweetest privilege of loveliness to console and bless so rare a being."

Mary raised her weeping face from the bosom of her friend, and clasping her hands together with trepidation and anguish, implored her to be as faithful to her secret as she had proved herself to Constantine's. "I would sooner die," added she, "than have him know my rashness, perhaps my indelicacy! Let me possess his esteem, Lady Tinemouth! Let him suppose that I only _esteem_ him! More I should shrink from. I have seen him beset by some of my s.e.x; and to be cla.s.sed with them--to have him imagine that my affection is like theirs!--I could not bear it. I entreat you, let him respect me!"

The impetuosity, and almost despair, with which Miss Beaufort uttered these incoherent sentences penetrated the soul of Lady Tinemouth with admiration. How different was the spirit of this pure and dignified love to the wild pa.s.sion she had seen shake the frame of Lady Sara Ross.

They remained silent for some time.

"May I see your ladyship to-morrow?" asked Mary, drawing her cloak about her.

"I fear not," replied the countess; "I leave this house tomorrow morning."

Miss Beaufort rose; her lips, hands, and feet trembled so that she could hardly stand. Lady Tinemouth put her arm round her waist, and kissing her forehead, added, "Heaven bless you, my sweet friend! May all the wishes of your innocent heart be gratified!"

The countess supported her to the door. Mary hesitated an instant; then flinging her snowy arms over her ladyship's neck, in a voice scarcely audible, articulated, "Only tell me, does he love Euphemia?"

Lady Tinemouth strained her to her breast. "No, my dearest girl; I am certain, both from what I have heard him say and observed in his eyes, that did he dare to love any one, _you_ would be the object of his choice."

How Miss Beaufort got into Lady Dundas's sedan-chair she had no recollection, so completely was she absorbed in the recent scene. Her mind was perplexed, her heart ached; and she arrived in Harley Street so much disordered and unwell as to oblige her to retire immediately to her room, with the excuse of a violent pain in her head.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

Pa.s.sION AND PRINCIPLE.

This interview induced Lady Tinemouth to destroy the note she had written to Thaddeus, and to frame another, better calculated to produce comfort to all parties. What she had declared to Mary respecting the state of the count's affections was sincere.

She had early pierced the veil of bashfulness with which Miss Beaufort overshadowed, when in his presence, that countenance so usually the tablet of her soul. The countess easily translated the quick receding of her eye whenever Thaddeus turned his attention towards her, the confused reply that followed any unexpected question from his lips, and, above all, the unheeded sighs heaved by her when he left the room, or when his name was mentioned during his absence.

These symptoms too truly revealed to Lady Tinemouth the state of her young friend's bosom.

But the circ.u.mstances being different, her observations on Thaddeus were not nearly so conclusive. Mary had absolutely given the empire of her happiness, with her heart, into his hands. Thaddeus felt that his ruined hopes ought to prevent him laying his at her feet, could he even be made to believe that he had found any favor in her sight!

and regarding her as a being beyond his reach, he conceived no suspicions that she entertained one dearer thought of him than what mere philanthropy could authorize.

He contemplated her unequalled beauty, graces, talents and virtues with an admiration bordering on idolatry! yet his heart flew from the confession that he loved her; and it was not until reason demanded of his sincerity why he felt a pang on seeing Mary's purse in the hands of Mr. Lascelles, that with a glowing cheek he owned to himself that he was jealous: that although he had not presumed to elevate one wish towards the possession of Miss Beaufort, yet when Lascelles flaunted her name on his tongue, he found how deep would be the wound in his peace should she ever give her hand to another than himself!

Confounded at this discovery of a pa.s.sion the seeds of which he supposed had been crushed by the weight of his misfortunes and the depths of his griefs, he proceeded homewards in a trance of thought, not far differing from that of the dreamer who sinks into a hara.s.sing slumber, and, filled with terror, doubts whether he be sleeping or awake.