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224, however, that he was then the husband of another, he endeavoured to rally and divert from himself the keen glance of Harcourt,—for it was no other than he of whom we have before spoken,—which became almost insupportable, and said with emphasis, "Engaged to her son! Merciful powers! that such a creature should have been, doomed to bless the rude embrace of a Herbert—a mere stripling in mind as in form!"

"Just so unpromising a youth as I had imagined," continued Harcourt; "there lay the deadly bane that poisoned my repose. But you have been acquainted with her, then?"

"I have been," was the laconic reply of Douglas, who, after a few minutes' hesitation, added, "You will not wonder at the exclamation which escaped me, when I tell you how greatly the mother of that young man has duped you, there not existing the smallest ground of truth in the assertion she made you."

Douglas then entered upon a minute detail of all that had passed between himself and Herbert, whilst companions in the same vessel, upon their destination to India. Absorbed by the distraction of his ideas, while his mind gradually unfolded to the deceit which had been practised upon him, "What a harrowing tale you unfold!" ejaculated Harcourt; "what a cursed fraud! And thy own precipitancy, Harcourt,—oh, thy cursed precipitancy!"

"You should have made your pretensions known