She stares, she starts, she sighs, she
weeps; feels highly offended at her friend daring to accept him; writes
a letter of rejection herself to the affianced damsel, which she makes
him sign, and then presents him with the hand which she always meant to
be his.
But this was above our hero. The truth is, whenever he thought of May
Dacre his spirit sank. She had cowed him; and her arrival in London had
made him as dissatisfied with his present mode of life as he had been
with his former career. They had met again, and under circumstances
apparently, to him, the most unfavourable. Although he was hopeless, yet
he dreaded to think what she might hear of him. Her contempt was bitter;
her dislike would even be worse. Yet it seemed impossible to retrieve.
He was plunged deeper than he imagined. Embarrassed, entangled,
involved, he flew to Lady Afy, half in pique and half in misery. Passion
had ceased to throw a glittering veil around this idol; but she was
kind, and pure, and gentle, and devoted. It was consoling to be loved to
one who was so wretched. It seemed to him that life must ever be a blank
without the woman who, a few months ago, he had left an encumbrance.
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