`Then you're a white livered fool, and I wash my hands of you,' grumbled the tempter as he swung himself round and departed.
`Right, right, Lord Lowborough!' cried I, darting out and clasping his burning hand, as he was moving away to the stairs. `I begin to think the world is not worthy of you!'
Not understanding this sudden ebullition, he turned upon me with a stare of gloomy, bewildered amazement that made me ashamed of the impulse to which I had yielded; but soon a more humanized expression dawned upon his countenance, and, before I could withdraw my hand, he pressed it kindly, while a gleam of genuine feeling flashed from his eyes as he murmured,--`God help us both!'
`Amen!' responded I; and we parted.
I returned to the drawing-room, where, doubtless, my presence would be expected by most, desired by one or two. In the ante-room was Mr. Hattersley, railing against Lord Lowborough's poltroonery before a select audience, viz. Mr. Huntingdon, who was lounging against the table exulting in his own treacherous villainy and laughing his victim to scorn, and Mr. Grimsby, standing by, quietly rubbing his hands and chuckling with fiendish satisfaction. At the glance I gave them in passing, Hattersley stopped short in his animadversions and stared like a bull calf, Grimsby glowered upon me with a leer of malignant ferocity, and my husband muttered a coarse and brutal malediction.
In the drawing-room I found Lady Lowborough, evidently in no very enviable state of mind, and struggling hard to conceal her discomposure by an overstrained affectation of unusual cheerfulness and vivacity, very uncalled for under the circumstances, for she had herself given the company to understand that her husband had received unpleasant intelligence from home, which necessitated his immediate departure, and that he had suffered it so to bother his mind that it had brought on a bilious headache, owing to which and the preparations he judged necessary to hasten his departure, she believed they would not have the pleasure of seeing him to-night. However, she asserted, it was only a business concern, and so she did not intend it should trouble her. She was just saying this as I entered, and she darted upon me such a glance of hardihood and defiance as at once astonished and revolted me.
`But I am troubled,' continued she, `and vexed too, for I think it my duty to accompany his lordship, and of course I am very sorry to part with all my kind friends, so unexpectedly and so soon.'
`And yet, Annabella,' said Esther, who was sitting beside her, `I never saw you in better spirits in my life.'
`Precisely so, my love; because I wish to make the best of your society, since it appears this is to be the last night I am to enjoy it, till Heaven knows when; and I wish to leave a good impression on you all,'--she glanced round, and seeing her aunt's eye fixed upon her, rather too scrutinizingly, as she probably thought, she started up and continued,-- `to which end I'll give you a song-hall I, aunt? shall I, Mrs. Huntingdon? shall I, ladies and gentlemen--all?--Very well, I'll do my best to amuse you.'
She and Lord Lowborough occupied the apartments next to mine.
I know not how she passed the night, but I lay awake the greater part of it listening to his heavy step pacing monotonously up and down his dressing-room, which was nearest my chamber. Once I heard him pause and throw something out of the window, with a passionate ejaculation; and in the morning, after they were gone, a keen-bladed clasp-knife was found on the grass-plot below; a razor, likewise was snapped in two and thrust deep into the cinders of the grate, but partially corroded by the decaying embers. So strong had been the temptation to end his miserable life, so determined his resolution to resist it.
My heart bled for him as I lay listening to that ceaseless tread.
Hitherto, I had thought too much of myself, too little of him: now I forgot my own afflictions, and thought only of his--of the ardent affection so miserably wasted, the fond faith so cruelly betrayed, the--no, I will not attempt to enumerate his wrongs,--but I hated his wife and my husband more intensely than ever, and not for my sake, but for his.