Chapter XVII (1)

'Now then,' said Adeline, her tears dropping fast as she spoke, 'now, then, we are alone in the world; henceforward we must be all to each other.'

'Is the idea a painful one, Adeline?' replied Glenmurray reproachfully.

'Not so,' returned Adeline, 'Still I can't yet forget that I had a mother, and a kind one too.'

'And may have again.'

'Impossible:--there is a vow in heaven against it. No--My plans for future happiness must be laid unmindful and independent of her. They must have you and your happiness for their sole object; I must live for you alone: and you,' added she in a faltering voice, 'must live for me.'

'I will live as long as I can,' replied Glenmurray sighing, 'and as one step towards it I shall keep early hours: so to rest, dear Adeline, and let us forget our sorrows as soon as possible.'

The next morning Adeline's and Glenmurray's first care was to determine on their future residence. It was desirable that it should be at a sufficient distance from London, to deserve the name and have the conveniences of a country abode, yet sufficiently near it for Glenmurray to have the advice of a London physician if necessary.

'Suppose we fix at Richmond?' said Glenmurray: and Adeline, to whom the idea of dwelling on a spot at once so classical and beautiful was most welcome, joyfully consented; and in a few days they were settled there in a pleasant but expensive lodging.

But here, as when abroad, Glenmurray occasionally saw old acquaintances, many of whom were willing to renew their intercourse with him for the sake of being introduced to Adeline; and who, from a knowledge of her situation, presumed to pay her that sort of homage, which, though not understood by her, gave pangs unutterable to the delicate mind of Glenmurray. 'Were she my wife, they dared not pay her such marked attention,' said he to himself; and again, as delicately as he could, he urged Adeline to sacrifice her principles to the prejudices of society.

'I thought,' replied Adeline gravely, 'that, as we lived for each other, we might act independent of society, and serve it by our example even against its will.'

Glenmurray was silent.--He did not like to own how painful and mischievous he found in practice the principles which he admired in theory--and Adeline continued:

'Believe me, Glenmurray, ours is the very situation calculated to urge us on in the pursuit of truth. We are answerable to no one for our conduct; and we can make any experiments in morals that we choose. I am wholly at a loss to comprehend why you persist in urging me to marry you. Take care, my dear Glenmurray--the high respect I bear your character was shaken a little by your fighting a duel in defiance of your principles; and your eagerness to marry, in further defiance of them, may weaken my esteem, if not my love.'

Adeline smiled as she said this: but Glenmurray thought she spoke more in earnest than she was willing to allow; and, alarmed at the threat, he only answered, 'You know it is for your sake merely that I speak,' and dropped the subject; secretly resolving, however, that he would not walk with Adeline in the fashionable promenades, at the hours commonly spent there by the beau monde.

But, in spite of this precaution, they could not escape the assiduities of some gay men of fashion, who knew Glenmurray and admired his companion; and Adeline at length suspected that Glenmurray was jealous. But in this she wronged him; it was not the attention paid her, but the nature of it, that disturbed him. Nor is it to be wondered at that Adeline herself was eager to avoid the public walks, when it is known that one of her admirers at Richmond was the Colonel Mordaunt whom she had become acquainted with at Bath.

Colonel Mordaunt, 'curst with every granted prayer,' was just beginning to feel the tedium of life, when he saw Adeline unexpectedly at Richmond; and though he felt shocked at first, at beholding her in so different a situation from that in which he had first beheld her, still that very situation, by holding forth to him a prospect of being favoured by her in his turn, revived his admiration with more than its original violence, and he resolved to be, if possible, the lover of Adeline, after Glenmurray should have fallen a victim, as he had no doubt but he would, to his dangerous illness.

But the opportunities which he had of seeing her suddenly ceased. She no longer frequented the public walks; and him, though he suspected it not, she most studiously avoided; for she could not bear to behold the alteration in his manner when be addressed her, an alteration perhaps unknown to himself. True, it was not insulting; but Adeline, who had admired him too much at Bath not to have examined with minute attention the almost timid expression of his countenance, and the respectfulness of his manner when he addressed her, shrunk abashed from the ardent and impassioned expression with which he now met her--an expression which Adeline used to call 'looking like Sir Patrick;' and which indicated even to her inexperience, that the admiration which he then felt was of a nature less pure and flattering than the one which she excited before; and though in her own eyes she appeared as worthy of respect as ever, she was forced to own even to herself, that persons in general would be of a contrary opinion.

But in vain did she resolve to walk very early in a morning only, being fully persuaded that she should then meet with no one. Colonel Mordaunt was as wakeful as she was; and being convinced that she walked during some part of the day, and probably early in a morning, he resolved to watch near the door of her lodgings, in hopes to obtain an hour's conversation with her. The consequence was, that he saw Adeline one morning walk pensively alone, down the shady road that leads from the terrace to Petersham.

This opportunity was not to be overlooked; and he overtook and accosted her with such an expression of pleasure on his countenance, as was sufficient to alarm the now suspicious delicacy of Adeline; and, conscious as she was that Glenmurray beheld Colonel Mordaunt's attentions with pain, a deep blush overspread her cheek at his approach, while her eyes were timidly cast down.

Colonel Mordaunt saw her emotion, and attributed it to a cause flattering to his vanity; it even encouraged him to seize her hand; and, while he openly congratulated himself on his good fortune in meeting her alone, he presumed to press her hand to his lips. Adeline indignantly withdrew it, and replied very coldly to his inquiries concerning her health.

'But where have you hidden yourself lately?' cried he.--'O Miss Mowbray! loveliest and, I may add, most beloved of women, how have I longed to see you alone, and pour out my whole soul to you!'

Adeline answered this rhapsody by a look of astonishment only--being silent from disgust and consternation,--while involuntarily she quickened her pace, as if wishing to avoid him.

'O hear me, and hear me patiently!' he resumed. 'You must have noticed the effect which your charms produced on me at Bath; and may I dare to add that my attentions then did not seem displeasing to you?'

'Sir!' interrupted Adeline, sighing deeply, 'my situation is now changed; and--'

'It is so, I thank Fortune that it is so,' replied Colonel Mordaunt; 'and I am happy to say, it is changed by no crime of mine.' (Here Adeline started and turned pale.) 'But I were unworthy all chance of happiness, were I to pass by the seeming opportunity of being blest, which the alteration to which you allude holds forth to me.'

Here he paused, as if in embarrassment, but Adeline was unable to interrupt him.

'Miss Mowbray,' he at length continued, 'I am told that you are not on good terms with your mother; nay, I have heard that she has renounced you; may I presume to ask if this be true?'

'It is,' answered Adeline trembling with emotion.

'Then, as before long it is probable that you will be without--without a protector--' (Adeline turned round and fixed her eyes wildly upon him.) 'To be sure,' continued he, avoiding her steadfast gaze, 'I could wish to call you mine this moment; but, unhappy as you appear to be in your present situation, I know, unlike many women circumstanced as you are, you are too generous and noble-minded to be capable of forsaking in his last illness the man whom in his happier moments you have honoured with your love.' As he said this, Adeline, her lips parched with agitation, and breathing short, caught hold of his arm; and pressing her cold hand, he went on: 'Therefore, I will not venture even to wish to be honoured with a kind look from you till Mr Glenmurray is removed to a happier world. But then, dearest of women, you whom I loved without hope of possessing you, and whom now I dote upon to madness, I conjure you to admit my visits, and let my attentions prevail on you to accept my protection, and allow me to devote the remainder of my days to love and you!'

'Merciful Heaven!' exclaimed Adeline, clasping her hands together, 'to what insults am I reserved!'

'Insults!' echoed Colonel Mordaunt.

'Yes, Sir,' replied Adeline: 'you have insulted me, grossly insulted me, and know not the woman whom you have tortured to the very soul.'

'Hear me, hear me, Miss Mowbray!' exclaimed Colonel Mordaunt, almost as much agitated as herself: 'by heaven I meant not to insult you! and perhaps I--perhaps I have been misinformed--No! Yes, yes, it must be so; your indignation proves that I have--You are, no doubt--and on my knees I implore your pardon--you are the wife of Mr Glenmurray.'

'And suppose I am _not_ his wife,' cried Adeline, 'is it then given to a wife only to be secure from being insulted by offers horrible to the delicacy, and wounding to the sensibility, like those which I have heard from you?' But before Colonel Mordaunt could reply, Adeline's thoughts had reverted to what he had said of Glenmurray's certain danger; and, unable to bear this confirmation of her fears, with the speed of phrensy she ran towards home, and did not stop till she was in sight of her lodging, and the still closed curtain of her apartment met her view.

'He is still sleeping, then,' she exclaimed, 'and I have time to recover myself, and endeavour to hide from him the emotion of which I could not tell the reason.' So saying, she softly entered the house, and by the time Glenmurray rose she had regained her composure. Still there was a look of anxiety on her fine countenance, which could not escape the penetrating eye of love.

'Why are you so grave this morning?' said Glenmurray, as Adeline seated herself at the breakfast table:--'I feel much better and more cheerful to-day.'

'But are you, indeed, better?' replied Adeline, fixing her tearful eyes on him.

'Or I much deceive myself,' said Glenmurray.

'Thank Heaven!' devoutly replied Adeline. 'I thought--I thought--' Here tears choked her utterance, and Glenmurray drew from her a confession of her anxious fears for him, though she prudently resolved not to agitate him by telling him of the rencontre with Colonel Mordaunt.

But when the continued assurances of Glenmurray that he was better, and the animation of his countenance, had in a degree removed her fears for his life, she had leisure to revert to another source of uneasiness, and to dwell on the insult which she had experienced from Colonel Mordaunt's offer of protection.

'How strange and irrational,' thought Adeline, 'are the prejudices of society! Because an idle ceremony has not been muttered over me at the altar, I am liable to be thought a woman of vicious inclinations, and to be exposed to the most daring insults.'

As these reflections occurred to her, she could scarcely help regretting that her principles would not allow her delicacy and virtue to be placed under the sacred shelter bestowed by that ceremony which she was pleased to call idle. And she was not long without experiencing still further hardships from the situation in which she had persisted so obstinately to remain. Their establishment consisted of a footman and a maid servant; but the latter had of late been so remiss in the performance of her duties, and so impertinent when reproved for her faults, that Adeline was obliged to give her warning.

'Warning, indeed!' replied the girl: 'a mighty hardship, truly! I can promise you I did not mean to stay long; it is no such favour to live with a kept miss; and if you come to that, I think I am as good as you.'

Shocked, surprised, and unable to answer, Adeline took refuge in her room. Never before had she been accosted by her inferiors without respectful attention; and now, owing to her situation, even a servant-maid thought herself authorised to insult her, and to raise herself to her level!

'But surely,' said Adeline mentally, 'I ought to reason with her, and try to convince her that I am in reality as virtuous as if I were Glenmurray's wife, instead of his mistress.'

Accordingly she went back into the kitchen; but her resolution failed her when she found the footman there, listening with a broad grin on his countenance to the relation which Mary was giving him of the 'fine trimming' which she had given 'madam.'

Scarcely did the presence of Adeline interrupt or restrain her; but at last she turned round and said, 'And, pray, have you got anything to say to me?'

'Nothing more now,' meekly replied Adeline, 'unless you will follow me to my chamber.'

'With all my heart,' cried the girl; and Adeline returned to her own room.

'I wish, Mary, to set you right,' said Adeline, 'with respect to my situation. You called me, I think, a kept miss, and seemed to think ill of me.'

'Why, to be sure, ma'am,' replied Mary, a little alarmed--'every body says you are a kept lady, and so I made no bones of saying so; but I am sure if so be you are not so, why I ax pardon.'

'But what do you mean by the term kept lady?'

'Why, a lady who lives with a man without being married to him, I take it; and that I take to be your case, ain't it, I pray?'

Adeline blushed and was silent:--it certainly was her case. However, she took courage and went on.

'But mistresses, or kept ladies in general, are women of bad character, and would live with any man; but I never loved, nor ever shall love, any man but Mr Glenmurray. I look on myself as his wife in the sight of God; nor will I quit him till death shall separate us.'

'Then if so be that you don't want to change, I think you might as well be married to him.'

Adeline was again silent for a moment, but continued--

'Mr Glenmurray would marry me to-morrow, if I chose.'

'Indeed! Well, if master is inclined to make an honest woman of you, you had better take him at his word, I think.'

'Gracious heaven!' cried Adeline, 'what an expression! Why will you persist to confound me with those deluded women who are victims of their own weakness?'

'As to that,' replied Mary, 'you talk too fine for me; but a fact is a fact--are you or are you not my master's wife?'

'I am not.'

'Why then you are his mistress, and a kept lady to all intents and purposes: so what signifies argufying the matter? I lived with a kept madam before; and she was as good as you, for aught I know.'

Adeline, shocked and disappointed, told her she might leave the room.

'I am going,' pertly answered Mary, 'and to seek for a place; but I must beg that you will not own you are no better than you should be, when a lady comes to ask my character; for then perhaps I should not get any one to take me. I shall call you Mrs Glenmurray.'

'But I shall not call _myself_ so,' replied Adeline. 'I will not say what is not true, on any account.'

'There now, there's spite! and yet you pretend to call yourself a gentlewoman, and to be better than other kept ladies! Why, you are not worthy to tie the shoestrings of my last mistress--she did not mind telling a lie rather than lose a poor servant a place; and she called herself a married woman rather than hurt me.'

'Neither she nor you, then,' replied Adeline gravely, 'were sensible of what great importance a strict adherence to veracity is, to the interests of society. I am;--and for the sake of mankind I will always tell the truth.'

'You had better tell one innocent lie for mine,' replied the girl pertly. 'I dare to say the world will neither know nor care anything about it: and I can tell you I shall expect you will.'

So saying she shut the door with violence, leaving Adeline mournfully musing on the distress attending on her situation, and even disposed to question the propriety of remaining in it.

The inquietude of her mind, as usual, showed itself in her countenance, and involved her in another difficulty: to make Glenmurray uneasy by an avowal of what had passed between her and Mary was impossible; yet how could she conceal it from him? And while she was deliberating on this point, Glenmurray entered the room, and tenderly inquired what had so evidently disturbed her.

'Nothing of any consequence,' she faltered out, and burst into tears.

'Could "nothing of consequence" produce such emotion?' answered Glenmurray.

'But I am ashamed to own the cause of my uneasiness.'

'Ashamed to own it to me, Adeline? To be sure, you have a great deal to fear from my severity!' said he, faintly smiling.

Adeline for a moment resolved to tell him the whole truth; but fearful of throwing him into a degree of agitation hurtful to his weak frame, she, who had the moment before so nobly supported the necessity of a strict adherence to truth, condescended to equivocate and evade; and turning away her head, while a conscious blush overspread her cheek, she replied, 'You know that I look forward with anxiety and uneasiness to the time of my approaching confinement.'

Glenmurray believed her; and overcome by some painful feelings, which fears for himself and anxiety for her occasioned him, he silently pressed her to his bosom; and, choked with contending emotions, returned to his own apartment.

'And I have stooped to the meanness of disguising the truth!' cried Adeline, clasping her hands convulsively together: 'surely, surely, there must be something radically wrong in a situation which exposes one to such a variety of degradations!'

Mary, meanwhile, had gone in search of a place; and having found the lady to whom she had been advised to offer herself, at home, she returned to tell Adeline that Mrs Pemberton would call in half an hour to inquire her character. The half-hour, an anxious one to Adeline, having elapsed, a lady knocked at the door, and inquired, in Adeline's hearing for Mrs Glenmurray.

'Tell the lady,' cried Adeline immediately from the top of the staircase, 'that Miss Mowbray will wait on her directly.' The footman obeyed, and Mrs Pemberton was ushered into the parlour: and now, for the first time in her life, Adeline trembled to approach a stranger; for the first time she was going to appear before a fellow-creature, conscious she was become an object of scorn, and, though an enthusiast for virtue, would be considered as a votary of vice. But it was a mortification which she must submit to undergo; and hastily throwing a large shawl over her shoulders, to hide her figure as much as possible, with a trembling hand she opened the door, and found herself in the dreaded presence of Mrs Pemberton.

Nor was she at all re-assured when she found that lady dressed in the neat, modest garb of a strict Quaker--a garb which creates an immediate idea in the mind, of more than common rigidness of principles and sanctity of conduct in the wearer of it. Adeline curtsied in silence.

Mrs Pemberton bowed her head courteously; then, with a countenance of great sweetness, and a voice calculated to inspire confidence, said, 'I believe thy name is Mowbray; but I came to see Mrs Glenmurray; and as on these occasions I always wish to confer with the principal, wouldst thou, if it be not inconvenient, ask the mistress of Mary to let me see her?'

'I am myself the mistress of Mary,' replied Adeline in a faint voice.

'I ask thine excuse,' answered Mrs Pemberton, re-seating herself: 'as thou art Mrs Glenmurray, thou art the person I wanted to see.'

Here Adeline changed colour, overcome with the consciousness that she ought to undeceive her, and the sense of the difficulty of doing so.

'But thou art very pale, and seemest uneasy,' continued the gentle Quaker--'I hope thy husband is not worse?'

'Mr Glenmurray, but not my husband,' said Adeline, 'is better to-day.'

'Art thou not married?' asked Mrs Pemberton with quickness.

'I am not.'

'And yet thou livest with the gentleman I named, and art the person whom Mary called Mrs Glenmurray!'

'I am,' replied Adeline, her paleness yielding to a deep crimson, and her eyes filling with tears.

Mrs Pemberton sat for a minute in silence; then rising with an air of cold dignity, 'I fear thy servant is not likely to suit me,' she observed, 'and I will not detain thee any longer.'

'She can be an excellent servant,' faltered out Adeline.

'Very likely--but there are objections.' So saying she reached the door: but as she passed Adeline she stopped, interested and affected by the mournful expression of her countenance, and the visible effort she made to retain her tears.

Adeline saw, and felt humbled at the compassion which her countenance expressed: to be an object of pity was as mortifying as to be an object of scorn, and she turned her eyes on Mrs Pemberton with a look of proud indignation: but they met those of Mrs Pemberton fixed on her with a look of such benevolence, that her anger was instantly subdued; and it occurred to her that she might make the benevolent compassion visible in Mrs Pemberton's countenance serviceable to her discarded servant.

'Stay, madam,' she cried, as Mrs Pemberton was about to leave the room, 'allow me a moment's conversation with you.'

Mrs Pemberton, with an eagerness which she suddenly endeavoured to check, returned to her seat.

'I suspect,' said Adeline, (gathering courage from the conscious kindness of her motive,) 'that your objection to take Mary Warner into your service proceeds wholly from the situation of her present mistress.'

'Thou judgest rightly,' was Mrs Pemberton's answer.

'Nor do I wonder,' continued Adeline, 'that you make this objection, when I consider the present prejudices of society.'

'Prejudices!' softly exclaimed the benevolent Quaker.

Adeline faintly smiled, and went on--'But surely you will allow, that in a family quiet and secluded as ours, and in daily contemplation of an union uninterrupted, faithful, and virtuous, and possessing all the sacredness of marriage, though without the name, it is not likely that the young woman in question should have imbibed any vicious habits or principles?'

'But in contemplating thy union itself, she has lived in the contemplation of vice; and thou wilt own, that, by having given it an air of respectability, thou hast only made it more dangerous.'

'On this point,' cried Adeline, 'I see we must disagree--I shall therefore, without further preamble, inform you, madam, that Mary, aware of the difficulty of procuring a service, if it were known that she had lived with a kept mistress, as the phrase is,' (here an indignant blush overspread the face of Adeline,) 'desired me to call myself the wife of Glenmurray: but this, from my abhorrence of all falsehood, I peremptorily refused.'

'And thou didst well,' exclaimed Mrs Pemberton, 'and I respect thy resolution.'

'But my sincerity will, I fear, prevent the poor girl's obtaining other reputable places; and I, alas! am not rich enough to make her amends for the injury which my conscience forces me to do her. But if you, madam, could be prevailed upon to take her into your family, even for a short time only, to wipe away the disgrace which her living with me has brought upon her--'

'Why can she not remain with thee?' asked Mrs Pemberton hastily.

'Because she neglected her duty, and, when reproved for it, replied in very injurious language.'

'Presuming probably on thy way of life?'

'I must confess that she has reproached me with it.'

'And this was all her fault?'

'It was:--she can be an excellent servant.'

'Thou hast said enough; thy conscience shall not have the additional burthen to bear, of having deprived a poor girl of her maintenance--I will take her.'

'A thousand thanks to you,' replied Adeline: 'you have removed a weight off my mind; but my conscience, has none to bear.'

'No?' returned Mrs Pemberton: 'dost thou deem thy conduct blameless in the eyes of that Being whom thou hast just blessed?'

'As far as my connexion with Mr Glenmurray is concerned, I do.'

'Indeed?'

'Nay, doubt me not--believe me that I never wantonly violate the truth; and that even an evasion, which I, for the first time in my life, was guilty of to-day, has given me a pang to which I will not again expose myself.'

'And yet, inconsistent beings as we are,' cried Mrs Pemberton, 'straining at a gnat, and swallowing a camel, what is the guilt of the evasion which weighs on thy mind, compared to that of living, as thou dost, in an illicit commerce? Surely, surely, thine heart accuses thee; for thy face bespeaks uneasiness, and thou wilt listen to the whispers of penitence, and leave, ere long, the man who has betrayed thee.'

'The man who has betrayed me! Mr Glenmurray is no betrayer--he is one of the best of human beings. No, madam: if I had acceded to his wishes, I should long ago have been his wife, but, from a conviction of the folly of marriage, I have preferred living with him without the performance of a ceremony which, in the eye of reason, can confer neither honour nor happiness.'

'Poor thing!' exclaimed Mrs Pemberton, rising as she spoke, 'I understand thee now--Thou art one of the enlightened, as they call themselves--Thou art one of those wise in their own conceit, who, disregarding the customs of ages, and the dictates of experience, set up their own opinions against the hallowed institutions of men and the will of the Most High.'

'Can you blame me,' interrupted Adeline, 'for acting according to what I think right?'

'But hast thou well studied the subject on which thou hast decided? Yet, alas! to thee how vain must be the voice of admonition!' (she continued, her countenance kindling into strong expression as she spoke)--'From the poor victim of passion and persuasion, penitence and amendment might be rationally expected; and she, from the path of frailty, might turn again to that of virtue: but for one like thee, glorying in thine iniquity, and erring, not from the too tender heart, but the vain-glorious head,--for thee there is, I fear, no blessed return to the right way; and I, who would have tarried with thee even in the house of sin, to have reclaimed thee, penitent, now hasten from thee, and for ever--firm as thou art in guilt.'

As she said this she reached the door; while Adeline, affected by her emotion, and distressed by her language, stood silent and almost abashed before her.

But with her hand on the lock she turned round, and in a gentler voice said, 'Yet not even against a wilful offender like thee, should one gate that may lead to amendment be shut. Thy situation and thy fortunes may soon be greatly changed; affliction may subdue thy pride, and the counsel of a friend of thine own sex might then sound sweetly in thine ears. Should that time come, I will be that friend. I am now about to set off for Lisbon with a very dear friend, about whom I feel as solicitous as thou about thy Glenmurray; and there I shall remain some time. Here then is my address; and if thou shouldest want my advice or assistance write to me, and be assured that Rachel Pemberton will try to forget thy errors in thy distresses.'

So saying she left the room, but returned again, before Adeline had recovered herself from the various emotions which she had experienced during her address, to ask her Christian name. But when Adeline replied, 'My name is Adeline Mowbray,' Mrs Pemberton started, and eagerly exclaimed, 'Art thou Adeline Mowbray of Gloucestershire--the young heiress, as she was called, of Rosevalley?'

'I was once,' replied Adeline, sinking back into a chair, 'Adeline Mowbray of Rosevalley.'

Mrs Pemberton for a few minutes gazed on her in mournful silence: 'And art thou,' she cried, 'Adeline Mowbray? Art thou that courteous, blooming, blessed being, (for every tongue that I heard name thee blessed thee,) whom I saw only three years ago bounding over thy native hills, all grace, and joy, and innocence?'

Adeline tried to speak, but her voice failed her.

'Art thou she,' continued Mrs Pemberton, 'whom I saw also leaning from the window of her mother's mansion, and inquiring with the countenance of a pitying angel concerning the health of a wan labourer who limped past the door?'

Adeline hid her face with her hands.

Mrs Pemberton went on in a lower tone of voice,--'I came with some companions to see thy mother's grounds, and to hear the nightingales in her groves; but' (here Mrs Pemberton's voice faltered) 'I have seen a sight far beyond that of the proudest mansion, said I to those who asked me of thy mother's seat; I have heard what was sweeter to my ear than the voice of the nightingale; I have seen a blooming girl nursed in idleness and prosperity, yet active in the discharge of every Christian duty; and I have heard her speak in the soothing accents of kindness and of pity, while her name was followed by blessings, and parents prayed to have a child like her. O lost, unhappy girl! such _was_ Adeline Mowbray: and often, very often, has thy graceful image recurred to my remembrance: but, how art thou changed! Where is the open eye of happiness? where is the bloom that spoke a heart at peace with itself? I repeat it, and I repeat it with agony. Father of mercies! is this thy Adeline Mowbray?'

Here, overcome with emotion, Mrs Pemberton paused; but Adeline could not break silence: she rose, she stretched out her hand as if going to speak, but her utterance failed her, and again she sunk on a chair.

'It was thine,' resumed Mrs Pemberton in a faint and broken voice, 'to diffuse happiness around thee, and to enjoy wealth unhated, because thy hand dispensed nobly the riches which it had received bounteously: when the ear heard thee, then it blessed thee; when the eye saw thee, it gave witness to thee; and yet--'

Here again she paused, and raised her fine eyes to heaven for a few minutes, as if in prayer; then, pressing Adeline's hand with an almost convulsive grasp, she drew her bonnet over her face, as if eager to hide the emotion which she was unable to subdue, and suddenly left the house; while Adeline, stunned and overwhelmed by the striking contrast which Mrs Pemberton had drawn between her past and present situation, remained for some minutes motionless on her seat, a prey to a variety of feelings which she dared not venture to analyse.

But, amidst the variety of her feelings, Adeline soon found that sorrow, sorrow of the bitterest kind, was uppermost. Mrs Pemberton had said that she was about to be visited by affliction--alluding, there was no doubt, to the probable death of Glenmurray--And was his fate so certain that it was the theme of conversation at Richmond? Were only _her_ eyes blind to the certainty of his danger?

On these ideas did Adeline chiefly dwell after the departure of her monitress; and in an agony unspeakable she entered the room where Glenmurray was sitting, in order to look at him, and form her own judgment on a subject of such importance. But, alas! she found him with the brilliant deceitful appearance that attends his complaint--a bloom resembling health on his cheek, and a brightness in his eye rivalling that of the undimmed lustre of youth. Surprised, delighted, and overcome by these appearances, which her inexperience rendered her incapable of appreciating justly, Adeline threw herself on the sofa by him; and, as she pressed her cold cheek to his glowing one, her tearful eye was raised to heaven with an expression of devout thankfulness.

'Mrs Pemberton paid you a long visit,' said Glenmurray, 'and I thought once, by the elevated tone of her voice, that she was preaching to you.'

'I believe she was,' cheerfully replied Adeline, 'and now I have a confession to make; the season of reserve shall be over, and I will tell you all the adventures of this day without _evasion_.'

'Aye, I thought you were not ingenuous with me this morning,' replied Glenmurray: 'but better late than never.'

Adeline then told him all that had passed between her and Mary and Mrs Pemberton, and concluded with saying, 'But the surety of your better health, which your looks give me, has dissipated every uneasiness; and if you are but spared to me, sorrow cannot reach me, and I despise the censure of the ignorant and the prejudiced. The world approve! What is the world to me?'--

'The conscious mind is its own awful world!'

Glenmurray sighed deeply as she concluded her narration.

'I have only one request to make,' said he--'Never let that Mary come into my presence again; and be sure to take care of Mrs Pemberton's address.'

Adeline promised that both his requests should be attended to. Mary was paid her wages, and dismissed immediately; and a girl being hired to supply her place, the menage went on quietly again.

But a new mortification awaited Glenmurray and Adeline. In spite of Glenmurray's eccentricities and opinions, he was still remembered with interest by some of the female part of his family; and two of his cousins, more remarkable for their beauty than their virtue, hearing that he was at Richmond, made known to him their intention of paying him a morning visit on their way to their country-seat in the neighbourhood.

'Most unwelcome visitors, indeed!' cried Glenmurray, throwing the letter down; 'I will write to them and forbid them to come.'

'That's impossible,' replied Adeline, 'for by this time they must be on the road, if you look at the date of the letter: besides, I wish you to receive them; I should like to see any relations or friends of yours, especially those who have liberality of sentiment enough to esteem you as you deserve.'

'You!--you see them!' exclaimed Glenmurray, pacing the room impatiently: 'O Adeline, that is _impossible_!'

'I understand you,' replied Adeline, changing colour: 'they will not deem me worthy,' forcing a smile, 'to be introduced to them.'

'And therefore would I forbid their coming. I cannot bear to _exclude_ you from my presence in order that I may receive them. No: when they arrive, I will send them word that I am unable to see them.'

'While they will attribute the refusal to the influence of the _creature_ who lives with you! No, Glenmurray, for my sake I must insist on your not being denied to them; and, believe me, I should consider myself as unworthy to be the choice of your heart, if I were not able to bear with firmness a mortification like that which awaits me.'

'But you allow it to be a mortification?'

'Yes; it is mortifying to a woman who knows herself to be virtuous, and is an idolater of virtue, to pay the penalty of vice, and be thought unworthy to associate with the relations of the man whom she loves.'

'They shall not come, I protest,' exclaimed Glenmurray.

But Adeline was resolute; and she carried her point. Soon after this conversation the ladies arrived, and Adeline shut herself up in her own apartment, where she gave way to no very pleasant reflections. Nor was she entirely satisfied with Glenmurray's conduct:--true, he had earnestly and sincerely wished to refuse to see his unexpected and unwelcome guests; but he had never once expressed a desire of combating their prejudices for Adeline's sake, and an intention of requesting that she might be introduced to them; but, as any common man would have done under similar circumstances, he was contented to do homage to 'things as they are,' without an effort to resist the prejudice to which he was superior.

'Alas!' cried Adeline, 'when can we hope to see society enlightened and improved, when even those who see and strive to amend its faults in theory, in practice tamely submit to the trammels which it imposes?'

An hour, a tedious hour to Adeline, having elapsed, Glenmurray's visitors departed; and by the disappointment that Adeline experienced at hearing the door close on them, she felt that she had had a secret hope of being summoned to be presented to them; and, with a bitter feeling of mortification, she reflected, that she was probably to the man whom she adored a shame and a reproach.

'Yet I should like to see them,' she said, running to the window as the carriage drove up, and the ladies entered it. At that moment they, whether from curiosity to see her, or accident, looked up at the window where she was. Adeline started back indignant and confused; for, thrusting their heads eagerly forward, they looked at her with the bold unfeeling stare of imagined superiority; and Adeline, spite of her reason, sunk abashed and conscious from their gaze.

'And this insult,' exclaimed she, clasping her hands and bursting into tears, 'I experience from Glenmurray's _relations_! I think I could have borne it better from any one else.'

She had not recovered her disorder when Glenmurray entered the room, and, tenderly embracing her, exclaimed, 'Never, never again, my love, will I submit to such a sacrifice as I have now made;' when seeing her in tears, too well aware of the cause, he gave way to such a passionate burst of tenderness and regret, that Adeline, terrified at his agitation, though soothed by his fondness, affected the cheerfulness which she did not feel, and promised to drive the intruders from her remembrance.

Had Glenmurray and Adeline known the real character of the unwelcome visitors, neither of them would have regretted that Adeline was not presented to them. One of them was married, and to so accommodating a husband, that his wife's known gallant was his intimate friend; and under the sanction of his protection she was received every where, and visited by every one, as the world did not think proper to be more clear-sighted than the husband himself chose to be. The other lady was a young and attractive widow, who coquetted with many men, but intrigued with only one at a time; for which self-denial she was rewarded by being allowed to pass unquestioned through the portals of fashionable society. But these ladies would have scorned to associate with Adeline; and Adeline, had she known their private history, would certainly have returned the compliment.

The peace of Adeline was soon after disturbed in another way. Glenmurray finding himself disposed to sleep in the middle of the day, his cough having kept him waking all night, Adeline took her usual walk, and returned by the church-yard. The bell was tolling; and as she passed she saw a funeral enter the church-yard, and instantly averted her head.

In so doing her eyes fell on a decent-looking woman, who with a sort of angry earnestness was watching the progress of the procession.

'Aye, there goes your body, you rogue!' she exclaimed indignantly, 'but I wonder where your soul is now?--where I would not be for something.'

Adeline was shocked, and gently observed, 'What crime did the person of whom you are speaking, that you should suppose his soul so painfully disposed of?'

'What crime?' returned the woman: 'crime enough, I think:--why, he ruined a poor girl here in the neighbourhood: and then, because he never chose to make a will, there is she lying-in of a little by-blow, with not a farthing of money to maintain her or the child, and the fellow's money is gone to the heir-at-law, scarce of kin to him, while his own flesh and blood is left to starve.'

Adeline shuddered:--if Glenmurray were to die, she and the child which she bore would, she knew, be beggars.

'Well, miss, or madam, belike, by the look of you,' continued the woman glancing her eye over Adeline's person, 'what say you? Don't you think the fellow's soul is where we should not like to be? However, he had his hell here too, to be sure! for, when speechless and unable to move his fingers, he seemed by signs to ask for pen and ink, and he looked in agonies; and there was the poor young woman crying over him, and holding in her arms the poor destitute baby, who would as he grew up be taught, he must think, to curse the wicked father who begot him, and the naughty mother who bore him!'

Adeline turned very sick, and was forced to seat herself on a tombstone. 'Curse the mother who bore him!' she inwardly repeated,--'and will my child curse me? Rather let me undergo the rites I have despised!' and instantly starting from her seat she ran down the road to her lodgings, resolving to propose to Glenmurray their immediate marriage.

'But is the possession of property, then,' she said to herself as she stopped to take breath, 'so supreme a good, that the want of it, through the means of his mother, should dispose a child to curse that mother?--No: my child shall be taught to consider nothing valuable but virtue, nothing disgraceful but _vice_.--Fool that I am! a bugbear frightened me; and to my foolish fears I was about to sacrifice my own principles, and the respectability of Glenmurray. No--Let his property go to the heir-at-law--let me be forced to labour to support my babe, when its father--' Here a flood of tears put an end to her soliloquy, and slowly and pensively she returned home.

But the conversation of the woman in the church-yard haunted her while waking, and continued to distress her in her dreams that night, and she was resolved to do all she could to relieve the situation of the poor destitute girl and child, in whose fate she might possibly see an anticipation of her own: and as soon as breakfast was over, and Glenmurray was engaged in his studies, she walked out to make the projected inquiries.

The season of the year was uncommonly fine; and the varied scenery visible from the terrace was, at the moment of Adeline's approach to it, glowing with more than common beauty. Adeline stood for some minutes gazing on it in silent delight; when her reverie was interrupted by the sound of boyish merriment, and she saw, at one end of the terrace, some well-dressed boys at play.

'Alas! regardless of their doom
The little victims play!'

immediately recurred to her: for, contemplating the probable evils of existence, she was darkly brooding over the imagined fate of her own offspring, should it live to see the light; and the children at their sport, having no care of ills to come, naturally engaged her attention.

But these happy children ceased to interest her, when she saw standing at a distance from the group, and apparently looking at it with an eye of envy, a little boy, even better dressed than the rest; who was sobbing violently, yet evidently trying to conceal his grief. And while she was watching the young mourner attentively, he suddenly threw himself on a seat; and, taking out his handkerchief, indignantly and impatiently wiped away the tears that would no longer be restrained.

'Poor child!' thought Adeline, seating herself beside him; 'and has affliction reached thee so soon!'

The child was beautiful: and his clustering locks seemed to have been combed with so much care; the frill of his shirt was so fine, and had been so very neatly plaited; and his sun-burnt neck and hands were so very very clean, that Adeline was certain he was the darling object of some fond mother's attention. 'And yet he is unhappy!' she inwardly exclaimed. 'When my fate resembled his, how happy I was!' But from the recollections like these she always hastened; and checking the rising sigh, she resolved to enter into conversation with the little boy.

'What is the matter?' she cried.--No answer. 'Why are you not playing with the young gentlemen yonder?'

She had touched the right string:--and bursting into tears, he sobbed out, 'Because they won't let me.'

'No? and why will they not let you?' To this he replied not; but sullenly hung his blushing face on his bosom.

'Perhaps you have made them angry?' gently asked Adeline. 'Oh! no, no,' cried the boy; 'but--' 'But what?' Here he turned from her, and with his nail began scratching the arm of the seat.

'Well; this is very strange, and seems very unkind,' cried Adeline: 'I will speak to them.' So saying, she drew near the other children, who had interrupted their play to watch Adeline and their rejected playmate. 'What can be the reason,' said she, 'that you will not let that little boy play with you?' The boys looked down, and said nothing.

'Is he ill-natured?'

'No.'

'Does he not play fair?'

'Yes.'

'Don't you like him?'

'Yes.'

'Then why do you make him unhappy, by not letting him join in your sport?'

'Tell the lady. Jack,' cries one; and Jack, the biggest boy of the party, said: 'Because he is not a gentleman's son like us, and is only a little bastard.'

'Yes,' cried one of the other children; 'and his mamma is so proud she dresses him finer than we are, for all he is base-born: and our papas and mammas don't think him fit company for us.'

They might have gone on for an hour--Adeline could not interrupt them. The cause of the child's affliction was a dagger in her heart; and, while she listened to the now redoubled sobs of the disgraced and proudly afflicted boy, she was driven almost to phrensy: for 'Such,' she exclaimed, 'may one time or other be the pangs of my child, and so to him may the hours of childhood be embittered!' Again she seated herself by the little mourner--and her tears accompanied his.

'My dear child, you had better go home,' said she, struggling with her feelings; 'your mother will certainly be glad of your company.'

'No, I won't go to her; I don't love her: they say she is a bad woman, and my papa a bad man, because they are not married.'

Again Adeline's horrors returned. 'But, my dear, they love you, no doubt; and you ought to love them,' she replied with effort.

'There, there comes your papa,' cried one of the boys; 'go and cry to him;--go.'

At these words Adeline looked up, and saw an elegant-looking man approaching with a look of anxiety.

'Charles, my dear boy, what has happened?' said he, taking his hand; which the boy sullenly withdrew. 'Come home directly,' continued his father, 'and tell me what is the matter, as we go along.' But again snatching his hand away, the proud and deeply wounded child resentfully pushed the shoulder next him forward, whenever his father tried to take his arm, and elbowed him angrily as he went.

Adeline felt the child's action to the bottom of her heart. It was a volume of reproach to the father; and she sighed to think what the parents, if they had hearts, must feel, when the afflicted boy told the cause of his grief. 'But, unhappy boy, perhaps my child may live to bless you!' she exclaimed, clasping her hands together: 'never, never will I expose my child to the pangs which you have experienced to-day.' So saying, she returned instantly to her lodgings; and having just strength left to enter Glenmurray's room, she faintly exclaimed: 'For pity's sake, make me your wife to-morrow!' and fell senseless on the floor.

On her recovery she saw Glenmurray pale with agitation, yet with an expression of satisfaction in his countenance, bending over her. 'Adeline! my dearest love!' he whispered as her head lay on his bosom, 'blessed be the words you have spoken, whatever be their cause! To-morrow you shall be my wife.'

'And then our child will be legitimate, will he not?' she eagerly replied.

'It will.'

'Thank God!' cried Adeline, and relapsed into a fainting fit. For it was not decreed that the object of her maternal solicitude should ever be born to reward it. Anxiety and agitation had had a fatal effect on the health of Adeline; and the day after her encounter on the terrace she brought forth a dead child.

As soon as Adeline, languid and disappointed, was able to leave her room, Glenmurray, whom anxiety during her illness had rendered considerably weaker, urged her to let the marriage ceremony be performed immediately. But with her hopes of being a mother vanished her wishes to become a wife, and all her former reasons against marriage recurred in their full force.

In vain did Glenmurray entreat her to keep her lately formed resolution: she still attributed his persuasions to generosity, and the heroic resolve of sacrificing his principles, with the consistency of his character, to her supposed good, and it was a point of honour with her to be as generous in return: consequently the subject was again dropped; nor was it likely to be soon renewed; and anxiety of a more pressing nature disturbed their peace and engrossed their attention. They had been three months at Richmond, and had incurred there a considerable debt; and Glenmurray, not having sufficient money with him to discharge it, drew upon his banker for half the half-year's rents from his estate, which he had just deposited in his hands; when to his unspeakable astonishment he found that the house had stopped payment, and that the principal partner had gone off with the deposits!

Scarcely could the firm mind of Glenmurray support itself under the stroke. He looked forward to the certainty of passing the little remainder of his life not only in pain but in poverty, and of seeing increase as fast as his wants the difficulty of supplying them; while the woman of his heart bent in increased agony over his restless couch; for he well knew that to raise money on his estate, or to anticipate the next half-year's rents, was impossible, as he had only a life interest in it; and, as he held the fatal letter in his hand, his frame shook with agitation.

'I could not have believed,' cried Adeline, 'that the loss of any sum of money could have so violently affected you.'

'Not the loss of my all! my support during the tedious scenes of illness!'

'Your all!' faltered out Adeline; and when she heard the true state of the case she found her agitation equalled that of Glenmurray, and in hopeless anguish she leaned on the table beside him.

'What is to be done,' said she, 'till the next half-year's rents become due? Where can we procure money?'

'Till the next half-year's rents become due!' replied he, looking at her mournfully: 'I shall not be distressed for money then.'

'No?' answered Adeline (not understanding him): 'our expenses have never yet been more than that sum can supply.'

Glenmurray looked at her, and, seeing how unconscious she was of the certainty of the evil that awaited her, had not the courage to distress her by explaining his meaning; and she went on to ask him what steps he meant to take to raise money.

'My only resource,' said he, 'is dunning a near relation of mine who owes me three hundred pounds: he is now, I believe, able to pay it. He is in Holland, indeed, at present; but he is daily expected in England, and will come to see me here. I have named him to you before, I believe. His name is Berrendale.'

It was then agreed that Glenmurray should write to Mr Berrendale immediately; and that, to prevent the necessity of incurring a further debt for present provisions and necessaries, some of their books and linen should be sold:--but week after week elapsed, and no letter was received from Mr Berrendale.