Her image unceasingly engaged his thoughts; he
still clung to the wild idea that she might yet be his. But his health
improved so slowly, that there was faint hope of his speedily taking
any steps to induce such a result. All his enquiries after her, and
Glastonbury, at his suggestion, had not been idle, were quite fruitless.
He made no doubt that she had quitted England. What might not happen,
far away from him, and believing herself betrayed and deserted? Often
when he brooded over these terrible contingencies, he regretted his
recovery.

Yet his family, thanks to the considerate conduct of his admirable
cousin, were still contented and happy. His slow convalescence was now
their only source of anxiety. They regretted the unfavourable season of
the year; they looked forward with hope to the genial influence of the
coming spring. That was to cure all their cares; and yet they might
well suspect, when they watched his ever pensive, and often suffering
countenance, that there were deeper causes than physical debility and
bodily pain to account for that moody and woe-begone expression. Alas!
how changed from that Ferdinand Armine, so full of hope, and courage,
and youth, and beauty, that had burst on their enraptured vision on his
return from Malta. Where was that gaiety now that made all eyes sparkle,
that vivacious spirit that kindled energy in every bosom? How miserable
to see him crawling about with a wretched stick, with his thin, pale
face, and tottering limbs, and scarcely any other pursuit than to creep
about the pleasaunce, where, when the day was fair, his servant would
place a camp-stool opposite the cedar tree where he had first beheld
Henrietta Temple; and there he would sit, until the unkind winter breeze
would make him shiver, gazing on vacancy; yet peopled to his mind's eye
with beautiful and fearful apparitions.

And it is love, it is the most delightful of human passions, that can
bring about such misery! Why will its true course never run smooth? Is
there a spell over our heart, that its finest emotions should lead only
to despair? When Ferdinand Armine, in his reveries, dwelt upon the past;
when he recalled the hour that he had first seen her, her first glance,
the first sound of her voice, his visit to Ducie, all the passionate
scenes to which it led, those sweet wanderings through its enchanted
bowers, those bright mornings, so full of expectation that was never
baulked, those soft eyes, so redolen