Page:Ethel Churchill 3.pdf/81

Rh day after day, I have turned away loathing from the morning light! How could I bear to think on the many miserable hours before me! With what heart-sickness I waited for the letter that never came! I have felt my temper grown irritable, my spirits broken, all my former enjoyments grown distasteful, my very nature changed—all this I could forgive, but I cannot forgive his own unworthiness! He whom I thought so high-minded, so generous; to whom I looked up, and on whom I relied with such fearless confidence; for him to prove so cruel, so false! In what can I ever believe again? It is not for his loss that I grieve, but I grieve over my own wasted affections; for all, that I cannot again even dream! No; let Mr. Courtenaye restore me my belief in his own high excellence, let him give me back my hope, my confidence, and then let him ask me to love him once more,—but not till then!" She bowed her face in her hands, and the large tears trickled slowly through. "Yet," said Lady Marchmont, seating