mand, the true cause of her rejection of Mr. Merton. Utterly prostrated by this final humiliation, she was unable to nerve herself as he advised for the approaching interview, and she sat in stupefied inaction, only not in tears, because their source had been exhausted in the foregoing sleepless night. The privilege of seeing Susan apart was as precious as it was rare, and Mr. Merton entered with bright alacrity, notwithstanding the vague uneasiness awakened by Mr. Mordaunt's manner. Your father said I should find you alone, Susan.' 6 'Yes,' Susan answered; 'I wanted to see you,— at least he said I must tell you myself,-that it is time all this should end.' All what?' repeated Mr. Merton, more startled by the way in which the words were spoken, than by the words themselves. 'Dear Susan, what is the matter? You look so ill, as if you did not know what you were saying.' 'No, I am not ill, or if I am, it is no matter. You must not think of me now, nor ever again.' Susan,-what have I done?' 'Nothing you have only loved me too well, and I cannot love again,-I cannot. Have pity on me, Anthony, and let me be free once more.' Anthony relaxed the hand he held imprisoned in his own, but not until he had drawn off the ring placed there as the sign of their betrothal. You are free,' he said, with a calmness more terrible to Susan than open reproaches. She had panted for that moment of release, and now it came, and she felt utterly forsaken. She looked up with pleading eyes into her lover's face. 'Do not ask my forgiveness,' he said; 'the fault was mine. I thought my love might have constrained yours, but since it cannot be, it is better that we should part. Another may attain the happiness that I have forfeited, but oh, Susan! he can never love as I have loved you.' 'I know it,' said Susan, in a stifled voice; and she did indeed feel that she was putting from her such love as could never again be her portion. 'If you had spoken sooner,' continued Mr. Merton, it would have spared you much suffering. These months, sometimes harassing to me, must have been terrible for you.' 'Not so terrible as their memory now.' 'Then forget them, and him who was the cause of this suffering. I will spare you as far as possible all painful associations, by leaving the home which I took such pleasure in preparing for its future mistress, and you shall not see nor hear of me until we can meet as friends. God bless you, dear Susan!' He drew down one of the hands with which she veiled her face, covered it with kisses, and was gone before she could look up. Mrs. Mordaunt entered presently and drew Susan to her side, who laid her head on her shoulder like a tired child. 'He was very good to me, Mamma,' she whispered. 'I think he had felt already that it would not do, and that I could never love him, and so it was soon over.' 'I saw him as he came out, and he told me to come to you,' said Mrs. Mordaunt. He could not say any more, and he just shook hands and went We are all so grieved for him, Susan.' away. 'Pity me, Mamma, too, a little,' said Susan, 'for I am very wretched. I should like to go away from every one I have ever seen, and hide my head. I cannot stay in London.' 'No; we have been talking of that. Uncle Ralph proposes to take you back to Duck Dub with him, and I believe it will be the best plan, for there you can be as quiet as you please.' Susan passively assented, and thus it was arranged. On the same afternoon she set out with Uncle Ralph, so as to be spared the wondering sympathy of her sisters, who were to know nothing of what had occurred until she was gone. But the same reserve was not maintained with Ailie, who busied herself in packing, with a care and forethought which only Ailie could show, while Susan rested her aching head on the pillow. 'Come Susan presently called her to her side. here, Ailie. You should not tire yourself for me, for if I had listened to you, all this misery might have been avoided. You have not been the same to me since that day.' 'Because you would not suffer me to be the same. But now all is straight between us, and we shall be closer friends than ever.' 'There is Susan turned restlessly on her couch. no use saying that, Ailie. I know that every one must hate and despise me.' 'Does it seem so?' returned Ailie: 'I wish so much to be with you now, and Mr. Cornwall is so pleased to have the charge of you.' 'Yes-Uncle Ralph-but he would say that black was white in my favour, and that will not satisfy me now.' 'Then it may satisfy you,' said Ailie, 'to know how thankful I am that you have done what is right and true, though most painful. And you must accept the suffering patiently, as an atonement for the wrong done to Mr. Merton.' 'I know I must,' said Susan plaintively, 'but it seems hard. So few months ago, life was bright and pleasant, and now it is all clouded.' And she lay quiet again, and suffered Ailie to continue her arrangements. 236 CHAPTER XXIV. Shall we expect from time, the physician of brutes, a lingering and uncertain deliverance? Shall we wait to be happy till we can forget that we are miserable, and owe to the weakness of our faculties a tranquillity which ought to be the effect of their strength? W LORD BOLINGBROKE. ITHIN a few days the rumour of Susan's broken engagement reached Leonard through a casual acquaintance, and his positive denial of the fact was not so entirely satisfactory to himself as to prevent his repairing to Charles-street, to ascertain the truth. As had happened once before, Lilias had taken refuge in the drawing-room with a headache, and was there alone when her cousin entered. His visits were of rare occurrence now, and a recollection of the last memorable dinner gave constraint to Lily's greeting. 'Mamma is out in the carriage,' she said, in answer to his inquiry. 'And Susan ?' 'Susan went out of town with Uncle Ralph on Wednesday.' Oh,' said Leonard, setting down the information he had received to idle gossip, 'I suppose that was a little arrangement between Susan and our Anthony.' |