n a few minutes more, she stood in the same apartment with
her David's detested rival! The embers of a large fire, decayed, cast
red twilight, which made it appear already dark without; and there he
stood, at the long room's extreme end, between her and the hearth.

To Winifred, the personal attributes of the man, whom in her awful
resolve she regarded merely as the instrument of that filial good work,
were utterly indifferent; yet she stopped--she shuddered--and trembled
all over, as she caught the mere outline of his figure by the
fire-light. There he was! to her idea, the embodied evil genius of her
family! the sullen apostate from the finer part of love--the victim of
satiety, (as rumour said,) the selfish contemner of women's better
feelings!--indifferent to all but person in his election of a wife;
willing to unite himself with one whose heart and mind were stranger to
him, on bare report of her health and beauty, and some slight
recollections of her childhood! Seeing her stop, and even totter, he
advanced a few steps; but she, with the instinctive recoil and antipathy
of some feeble creature from its natural enemy, retreated at his first
movement--and, shocked by this betrayed repugnance, he again stood
irresolute. Then rushed back upon her heart, with all the horror of
novelty, the renunciation of poor David, now it was on the point of
being sealed for ever. Now father, mother, all beside, was
forgotten--the ghastliness of a terrible struggle within, the stern
horror of confirmed despair, began to disguise her beauty as with a
death-pale mask--the features grew rigid, her heart beat audibly, her
ears rang and tingled, and sight grew dim. She was fainting, falling. Mr
Fitzarthur sprang to support her, but putting his arms too boldly round
her waist, that detested freedom at once startled her into temporary
self-possession, back into life. She gasped, struggled against him, as
if she had rather have fallen than have been supported by _him_; and
turned to him that white face, white even to the lips, imploringly,
where was still depicted her unconquerable aversion. Some astonishment
seemed to rivet that look upon his face, but half-visible by the dusky
light--astonishment no longer painful, when the Nabob, emboldened,
renewed his now permitted clasp, and only uttering "My _dear_! don't you
know me?" in the tenderest tone to which ever manly voice was modulated,
increased his grasp to a passionate embrace, advanced hi