od humour, revolving in his
mind Miss Temple's advice about optimism. What could she mean? Was there
really a conspiracy to make him marry his cousin, and was Miss Temple
one of the conspirators? He could scarcely believe this, and yet it was
the most probable, deduction from all that had been said and done. He
had lived to witness such strange occurrences, that no event ought now
to astonish him. Only to think that he had been sitting quietly in
a drawing-room with Henrietta Temple, and she avowedly engaged to be
married to another person, who was present; and that he, Ferdinand
Armine, should be the selected companion of their morning ride, and
be calmly invited to contribute to their daily amusement by his social
presence! What next? If this were not an insult, a gross, flagrant, and
unendurable outrage, he was totally at a loss to comprehend what was
meant by offended pride. Optimism, indeed! He felt far more inclined
to embrace the faith of the Manichee! And what a fool was he to have
submitted to such a despicable, such a degrading situation! What
infinite weakness not to be able to resist her influence, the influence
of a woman who had betrayed him! Yes! betrayed him. He had for some
period reconciled his mind to entertain the idea of Henrietta's
treachery to him. Softened by time, atoned for by long suffering,
extenuated by the constant sincerity of his purpose, his original
imprudence, to use his own phrase in describing his misconduct, had
gradually ceased to figure as a valid and sufficient cause for her
behaviour to him. When he recollected how he had loved this woman,
what he had sacrificed for her, and what misery he had in consequence
entailed upon himself and all those dear to him; when he contrasted
his present perilous situation with her triumphant prosperity, and
remembered that while he had devoted himself to a love which proved
false, she who had deserted him was, by a caprice of fortune, absolutely
rewarded for her fickleness; he was enraged, he was disgusted, he
despised himself for having been her slave; he began even to hate her.
Terrible moment when we first dare to view with feelings of repugnance
the being that our soul has long idolised! It is the most awful of
revelations. We start back in horror, as if in the act of profanation.

Other annoyances, however, of a less ethereal character, awaited our
hero on his return to his hotel. There he found a letter from his
lawyer, informing him that