Can I
bear any letter for you?'
'I have just written,' replied Arundel, in a gloomy voice, and with a
changing countenance, 'and therefore will not trouble you. And yet----'
'What!'
'And yet the letter is an important letter: to me. The post, to be sure,
never does miss; but if it were not troubling your Grace too much, I
almost would ask you to be its bearer.'
'It will be there as soon,' said the Duke, 'for I shall be off in an
hour.'
'I will take it out of the box then,' said Arundel; and he fetched it.
'Here is the letter,' said he on his return: 'pardon me if I impress
upon you its importance. Excuse this emotion, but, indeed, this letter
decides my fate. My happiness for life is dependent on its reception!'
He spoke with an air and voice of agitation.
The Duke received the letter in a manner scarcely less disturbed; and
with a hope that they might meet before his departure, faintly murmured
by one party, and scarcely responded to by the other, they parted.
'Well, now,' said the Duke, 'the farce is complete; and I have come to
London to be the bearer of his offered heart! I like this, now.
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