rn.

Guilty, but not hardened in her guilt, her pangs, her shame were the
more excessive. She fled from the place at his approach; fled from his
house, never again to return to a habitation where he was the master.
She did not, however, elope with her paramour, but escaped to shelter
herself in the most dreary retreat; where she partook of no one comfort
from society, or from life, but the still unremitting friendship of Miss
Woodley. Even her infant daughter she left behind, nor would allow
herself the consolation of her innocent, though reproachful smiles--she
left her in her father's house, that she might be under his protection;
parted with her, as she thought, for ever, with all the agonies with
which mothers part from their infant children: and yet, even a mother
can scarce conceive how much more sharp those agonies were, on
beholding--the child sent after her, as the perpetual outcast of its
father.

Lord Elmwood's love to his wife had been extravagant--the effect of his
hate was the same. Beholding himself separated from her by a barrier
never to be removed, he vowed in the deep torments of his revenge, never
to be reminded of her by one individual object; much less, by one so
near to her as her child. To bestow upon that child his affections,
would be, he imagined, still, in some sort, to divide them with the
mother. Firm in his resolution, the beautiful Matilda, was, at the age
of six years, sent out of her father's house, and received by her mother
with all the tenderness, but with all the anguish, of those parents, who
behold their offspring visited by the punishment due only to their own
offences.

While this rigid act was executing by Lord Elmwood's agents at his
command, himself was engaged in an affair of still weightier
importance--that of life or death:--he determined upon his own death, or
the death of the man who had wounded his honour and destroyed his
happiness. A duel with his old antagonist was the result of this
determination; nor was the Duke of Avon (who before the decease of his
father and eldest brother, was Lord Frederick Lawnly) averse from giving
him all the satisfaction he required. For it was no other than he, whose
passion for Lady Elmwood had still subsisted, and whose address in
gallantry left no means unattempted for the success of his designs;--no
other than he, (who, next to Lord Elmwood, had been of all her lovers,
the most favoured,) to whom Lady Elmwood sacrificed her own an