had deserted her, Agnes made due allowance for a large infusion
of exaggeration in the picture presented to her. The main impression
produced on her mind was an impression of nervous uneasiness.
If she trusted herself in the streets by daylight while Lord
Montbarry remained in London, how could she be sure that his next
chance-meeting might not be a meeting with herself? She waited at home,
privately ashamed of her own undignified conduct, for the next two days.
On the third day the fashionable intelligence of the newspapers
announced the departure of Lord and Lady Montbarry for Paris,
on their way to Italy.

Mrs. Ferrari, calling the same evening, informed Agnes that her husband
had left her with all reasonable expression of conjugal kindness;
his temper being improved by the prospect of going abroad.
But one other servant accompanied the travellers--Lady Montbarry's maid,
rather a silent, unsociable woman, so far as Emily had heard.
Her ladyship's brother, Baron Rivar, was already on the Continent.
It had been arranged that he was to meet his sister and her husband
at Rome.

One by one the dull weeks succeeded each other in the life of Agnes.
She faced her position with admirable courage, seeing her friends,
keeping herself occupied in her leisure hours with reading and drawing,
leaving no means untried of diverting her mind from the melancholy
remembrance of the past. But she had loved too faithfully,
she had been wounded too deeply, to feel in any adequate degree
the influence of the moral remedies which she employed.
Persons who met with her in the ordinary relations of life,
deceived by her outward serenity of manner, agreed that 'Miss
Lockwood seemed to be getting over her disappointment.'