he would have participated in
his hopes, and, as a natural consequence, she must now have had to bear
this deadly blow of disappointment, probably the last cherished hope of
her heart; and under such circumstances, it is difficult to say what its
effect upon her might have been. This was now his only satisfaction, to
which we may add the consciousness that he had not, by making premature
disclosures, been the means of compromising the innocent.

After much thought and reflection upon the gloomy position in which both
he himself and especially Lucy were placed, he resolved to write to Mrs.
Mainwaring upon the subject; although at the moment he scarcely knew in
what terms to address her, or what steps he could suggest to her, as one
feeling a deep interest in Miss Gourlay's happiness. At length, after
much anxious rumination, he wrote the following short letter, or rather
note, more with a view of alarming Mrs. Mainwaring into activity, than
of dictating to her any line of action as peculiarly suited to the
circumstances.

"Madam,--The fact of Miss Gourlay having taken refuge with you as her
friend, upon a certain occasion that was, I believe, very painful to
that young lady, I think sufficiently justifies me in supposing that
you feel a warm interest in her fate. For this reason, therefore, I
have taken the liberty of addressing you with reference to her present
situation. If ever a human being required the aid and consolation of
friendship, Miss Gourlay now does; and I will not suppose that a lady
whom she honored with her esteem and affection, could be capable of
withholding from her such aid and such consolation, in a crisis so
deplorable. You are probably aware, madam, that she is on the point of
being sacrificed, by a forced and hated union, to the ambitious views
of her father; but you could form a very slight conception indeed of
the horror with which she approaches the gulf that is before her. Could
there be no means devised by which this unhappy young lady might be
enabled with honor to extricate herself from the wretchedness with which
she is encompassed? I beg of you, madam, to think of this; there is
little time to be lost. A few days may seal her misery forever. Her
health and spirits are fast sinking, and she is beginning to entertain
apprehensions that that apathy which proceeds from the united influence
of exhaustion and misery, may, in some unhappy moment, deprive her of
the power of resistance, even fo