nned with this _contretemps_, that I fell senseless to the
ground; and it was long before the kind attentions and assiduity of
Eugenia could restore me. When she had succeeded, my first act was one
of base ingratitude, cruelty, and injustice: I spurned her from me,
and upbraided her as the cause of my unfortunate situation. She only
replied with tears. I quitted her and the child without bidding them
adieu, little thinking I should never see them again. I ran to the
inn, where I had left my horse, mounted, and rode back to ---- Hall.
Mr Somerville and his daughter had just arrived, and Emily was lifted
off her horse, and obliged to be carried up to her room.

Clara and Talbot came to enquire what had happened. I could give
no account of it; but earnestly requested to see Emily. The answer
returned was that Miss Somerville declined seeing me. In the course of
this day, which, in point of mental suffering, exceeded all I had
ever endured in the utmost severity of professional hardship, an
explanation had taken place between myself, my father, and Mr
Somerville. I had done that by the impulse of dire necessity which I
ought to have done at first of my own free will. I was caught at last
in my own snare. "The trains of the devil are long," said I to myself,
"but they are sure to blow up at last."

The consequence of the explanation was my final dismissal, and a
return of all the presents which my father and myself had given to
Emily. My conduct, though blamable, was not viewed in that heinous
light, either by my father or Mr Somerville; and both of them did all
that could be done to restore harmony. Clara and Talbot interposed
their kind offices, but with no better success. The maiden pride of
the inexorable Emily had been alarmed by a beautiful rival, with a
young family, in the next village. The impression had taken hold of
her spotless mind, and could not be removed. I was false, fickle, and
deceitful, and was given to understand that Miss Somerville did not
intend to quit her room until she was assured by her father that I was
no longer a guest in the house.

Under these painful circumstances, our remaining any longer at the
Hall was both useless and irksome--a source of misery to all.

My father ordered his horses the next morning, and I was carried back
to London, more dead than alive. A burning fever raged in my blood;
and the moment I reached my father's house, I was put to bed, and
placed under the care of a ph