together untrue to Florence. It
hardly occurred to him to think that he could free himself from the
contract by which he was bound to her: No; it was toward Lady Ongar that
his treachery must be exhibited toward the woman whom he had sworn to
befriend, and whom he now, in his distress, imagined to be the dearer to
him of the two. He should, according to his custom, have written to
Florence a day or two before he left London, and, as he went to Bolton
Street, had determined to do so that evening on his return home; but
when he reached his rooms he found it impossible to write such a letter.
What could he say to her that would not be false? How could he tell her
that he loved her, and speak as he was wont to do of his impatience,
after that which had just occurred in Bolton Street?

But what was he to do in regard to Julia? He was bound to let her know
at once what was his position, and to tell her that in treating her as
he had treated her, he had simply insulted her. That look of gratified
contentment with which she had greeted him as he was leaving her, clung
to his memory and tormented him. Of that contentment he must now rob
her, and he was bound to do so with as little delay as was possible.
Early in the morning before he started on his journey he did make an
attempt, a vain attempt, to write, not to Florence but to Julia. The
letter would not get itself written. He had not the hardihood to inform
her that he had amused himself with her sorrows, and that he had injured
her by the exhibition of his love. And then that horrid Franco-Pole,
whose prying eyes Julia had dared to disregard, because she had been
proud of his love! If she had not been there, the case might have been
easier. Harry, as he thought of this, forgot to remind himself that if
Sophie had not interrupted him he would have floundered on from one
danger to another till he would have committed himself more thoroughly
even than he had done, and have made promises which it would have been
as shameful to break as it would be to keep them. But even as it was,
had he not made such promises? Was there not such a promise in that
embrace, in the half-forgotten word or two which he had spoken while she
was in his arms, and in the parting grasp of his hand? He could not
write that letter then, on that morning, hurried as he was with the
necessity of his journey; and he started for Clavering resolving that it
should be written from his father's house.

It was a t