e is of any
consideration, I had not still some regard for an illustrious family,
that would be distracted were I to resent such an injury as it deserves.
In this particular you are interested yourself: you are my friend, and I
make you my confidant in an affair of the greatest imaginable delicacy:
let us then consult together what is proper to be done in so perplexing
and disagreeable a situation."

Hamilton, if possible, more astonished, and more confounded than himself,
was far from being in a proper state to afford him advice on the present
occasion: he listened to nothing but jealousy, and breathed nothing but
revenge; but these emotions being somewhat abated, in hopes that there
might be calumny, or at least exaggeration in the charges against Lady
Chesterfield, he desired her husband to suspend his resolutions, until he
was more fully informed of the fact; assuring him, however, that if he
found the circumstances such as he had related, he should regard and
consult no other interest than his.

Upon this they parted; and Hamilton found, on the first inquiry, that
almost the whole court was informed of the adventure, to which every one
added something in relating it. Vexation and resentment, inflamed his
heart, and by degrees extinguished every remnant of his former passion.

He might easily have seen her, and have made her such reproaches as a man
is generally inclined to do, on such occasions; but he was too much
enraged to enter into any detail which might have led to an explanation:
he considered himself as the only person essentially injured in this
affair; for he could never bring his mind to think that the injuries of
the husband could be placed in competition with those of the lover.

He hastened to Lord Chesterfield, in the transport of his passion, and
told him that he had heard enough to induce him to give such advice, as
he should follow himself in the same situation, and that if he wished to
save a woman so strongly prepossessed, and who perhaps had not yet lost
all her innocence, though she had totally lost her reason, he ought not
to delay one single instant, but immediately to carry her into the
country with the greatest possible expedition, without allowing her the
least time to recover her surprise.

Lord Chesterfield readily agreed to follow this advice, which he had
already considered as the only counsel a friend could give him; but his
lady who did not suspect he had made this last discover