Rising from her melancholy posture, she was
going to meet her father, when, on opening the door, Colonel L'Isle
stood before her.
All the incidents of the last evening they had spent together,
particularly those which he had so carefully suppressed from the
narrative wrung from him, rushed upon her memory. Her folly and his
generous forbearance stood facing each other. Casting her eyes on the
floor, and grasping the handle of the door, to steady her tottering
frame, she could only gasp out, "I expected my father."
"My lord is very busy in Elvas, and so indeed was I," said L'Isle,
coolly; "but, as I march at sunrise to-morrow, I felt bound to borrow
a few minutes from duty to take my leave of Lady Mabel Stewart."
She now recollected herself enough to let go the handle of the door,
and make room for him to enter, and, by a motion of the hand, invited
him to take a seat.
Taking a chair near her, L'Isle ran his eye round the well-remembered
room. Perhaps he was thinking of his last visit here--perhaps
remarking its dismantled, comfortless condition. It was not more
changed than he was. All his earnest frankness of manner was gone.
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