lligence reiterating that Richard waited, and
still waited; Richard's letters, and more his dumb abiding and practical
penitence; vindicated humanity sufficiently to stop the course of
virulent aphorisms. He could speak, we have seen, in sorrow for this
frail nature of ours, that he had once stood forth to champion. "But how
long will this last?" he demanded, with the air of Hippias. He did not
reflect how long it had lasted. Indeed, his indigestion of wrath had
made of him a moral Dyspepsy.

It was not mere obedience that held Richard from the aims of his
young wife: nor was it this new knightly enterprise he had presumed to
undertake. Hero as he was, a youth, open to the insane promptings of hot
blood, he was not a fool. There had been talk between him and Mrs. Doria
of his mother. Now that he had broken from his father, his heart spoke
for her. She lived, he knew: he knew no more. Words painfully hovering
along the borders of plain speech had been communicated to him, filling
him with moody imaginings. If he thought of her, the red was on his
face, though he could not have said why. But now, after canvassing the
conduct of his father, and throwing him aside as a terrible riddle, he
asked Mrs. Doria to tell him of his other parent. As softly as she could
she told the story. To her the shame was past: she could weep for the
poor lady. Richard dropped no tears. Disgrace of this kind is always
present to a son, and, educated as he had been, these tidings were a
vivid fire in his brain. He resolved to hunt her out, and take her from
the man. Here was work set to his hand. All her dear husband did was
right to Lucy. She encouraged him to stay for that purpose, thinking it
also served another. There was Tom Bakewell to watch over Lucy: there
was work for him to do. Whether it would please his father he did not
stop to consider. As to the justice of the act, let us say nothing.

On Ripton devolved the humbler task of grubbing for Sandoe's place of
residence; and as he was unacquainted with the name by which the poet
now went in private, his endeavours were not immediately successful.
The friends met in the evening at Lady Blandish's town-house, or at the
Foreys', where Mrs. Doria procured the reverer of the Royal Martyr,
and staunch conservative, a favourable reception. Pity, deep pity for
Richard's conduct Ripton saw breathing out of Mrs. Doria. Algernon
Feverel treated his nephew with a sort of rough commiseration, as a
y