er, that fond and widowed father, of whom she was the only
and cherished child! All his goodness, all his unceasing care, all his
anxiety, his ready sympathy, his watchfulness for her amusement, her
comfort, her happiness, his vigilance in her hours of sickness, his
pride in her beauty, her accomplishments, her affection, the smiles
and tears of long, long years, all passed before her, till at last she
released herself with a quick movement from the hold of Ferdinand, and,
clasping her hands together, burst into a sigh so bitter, so profound,
so full of anguish, that Ferdinand started from his seat.

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'Henrietta!' he exclaimed, 'my beloved Henrietta!'

'Leave me,' she replied, in a tone almost of sternness.

He rose and walked up and down the room, overpowered by contending
emotions. The severity of her voice, that voice that hitherto had
fallen upon his ear like the warble of a summer bird, filled him with
consternation. The idea of having offended her, of having seriously
offended her, of being to her, to Henrietta, to Henrietta, that divinity
to whom his idolatrous fancy clung with such rapturous devotion, in
whose very smiles and accents it is no exaggeration to say he lived and
had his being, the idea of being to her, even for a transient moment,
an object of repugnance, seemed something too terrible for thought,
too intolerable for existence. All his troubles, all his cares, all his
impending sorrows, vanished into thin air, compared with this unforeseen
and sudden visitation. Oh! what was future evil, what was tomorrow,
pregnant as it might be with misery, compared with the quick agony
of the instant? So long as she smiled, every difficulty appeared
surmountable; so long as he could listen to her accents of tenderness,
there was no dispensation with which he could not struggle. Come what
may, throned in the palace of her heart, he was a sovereign who might
defy the world in arms; but, thrust from that great seat, he was a
fugitive without a hope, an aim, a desire; dull, timid, exhausted,
broken-hearted!

And she had bid him leave her. Leave her! Henrietta Temple had bid him
leave her! Did he live? Was this the same world in which a few hours
back he breathed, and blessed his God for breathing? What had happened?
What strange event, what miracle had occurred, to work this awful, this
portentous change? Why, if she had known all, if she had suddenly shared
that sharp and perpetual w