_IV.--Explanation and Reconciliation_


Quite unexpectedly a summons came from Lady Delacour, and Belinda
returned to her at once, to find her so seriously ill that she persuaded
her at last to consent to an operation, and inform her husband of the
dangerous disease from which she was suffering. He believed from her
preamble that she was about to confess her love for another man; he
tried to stop her with an emotion and energy he had never shown until
now.

"I am not sufficiently master of myself. I once loved you too well to
hear such a stroke. Say no more--trust me with no such secret! you have
said enough--too much. I forgive you, that is all I can do; but we must
part, Lady Delacour!" said he, breaking from her with agony expressed in
his countenance.

"The man has a heart, a soul, I protest! You knew him better that I did,
Miss Portman. Nay, you are not gone yet, my lord! You really love me, I
find."

"No, no, no!" cried he vehemently. "Weak as you take me to be, Lady
Delacour, I am incapable of loving a woman who has disgraced me,
disgraced herself, her--" His utterance failed.

"Oh, Lady Delacour," cried Belinda, "how can you trifle in this manner?"

"I meant not," said her ladyship, "to trifle; I am satisfied. My lord, I
can give you the most irrefragable proof that whatever may have been the