alisman, had enchanted her whole soul, held out the delusive prospect
that "William might yet relent;" for, though she had for ever discarded
the hope of peace, she could not force herself to think but that, again
blest with his society, she should, at least for the time that he was
present with her, taste the sweet cup of "forgetfulness of the past," for
which she so ardently thirsted.

"Should he return to me," she thought in those paroxysms of delusion, "I
would to _him_ unbosom all my guilt; and as a remote, a kind of unwary
accomplice in my crime, his sense, his arguments, ever ready in making
light of my sins, might afford a respite to my troubled conscience."

While thus she unwittingly thought, and sometimes watched through the
night, starting with convulsed rapture at every sound, because it might
possibly be the harbinger of him, _he_ was busied in carefully looking
over marriage articles, fixing the place of residence with his destined
bride, or making love to her in formal process. Yet, Agnes, vaunt!--he
sometimes thought on thee--he could not witness the folly, the weakness,
the vanity, the selfishness of his future wife, without frequently
comparing her with thee. When equivocal words and prevaricating
sentences fell from her lips, he remembered with a sigh thy candour--that
open sincerity which dwelt upon thy tongue, and seemed to vie with thy
undisguised features, to charm the listener even beyond the spectator.
While Miss Sedgeley eagerly grasped at all the gifts he offered, he could
not but call to mind "that Agnes's declining hand was always closed, and
her looks forbidding, every time he proffered such disrespectful tokens
of his love." He recollected the softness which beamed from her eyes,
the blush on her face at his approach, while he could never discern one
glance of tenderness from the niece of Lord Bendham: and the artificial
bloom on her cheeks was nearly as disgusting as the ill-conducted
artifice with which she attempted gentleness and love.

But all these impediments were only observed as trials of his
fortitude--his prudence could overcome his aversion, and thus he valued
himself upon his manly firmness.

'Twas now, that William being rid, by the peevishness of Agnes, most
honourably of all future ties to her, and the day of his marriage with
Miss Sedgeley being fixed, that Henry, with the rest of the house, learnt
what to them was news. The first dart of Henry's eye upon his cousin