What Will He Do with It — Volume 08 by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
page 50 of 69 (72%)
page 50 of 69 (72%)
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to Lady Montfort. See again neither her nor the impostor she has been
cherishing for my disgrace. This letter will be your excuse to break off with both--with both. GUY DARRELL." Lionel was stunned. Not for several hours could he recover self- possession enough to analyse his own emotions, or discern the sole course that lay before him. After such a letter from such a benefactor, no option was left to him. Sophy must be resigned; but the sacrifice crushed him to the earth--crushed the very manhood out of him. He threw himself on the floor, sobbing--sobbing as if body and soul were torn, each from each, in convulsive spasms. But send this letter to Lady Montfort? A letter so wholly at variance with Darrell's dignity of character--a letter in which rage seemed lashed to unreasoning frenzy. Such bitter language of hate and scorn, and even insult to a woman, and to the very woman who had seemed to Lionel so reverently to cherish the writer's name--so tenderly to scheme for the writer's happiness! Could he obey a command that seemed to lower Darrell even more than it could humble her to whom it was sent? Yet disobey! What but the letter itself could explain? Ah--and was there not some strange misunderstanding with respect to Lady Montfort, which the letter itself, and nothing but the letter, would enable her to dispel; and if dispelled, might not Darrell's whole mind undergo a change? A flash of joy suddenly broke on his agitated, tempestuous thoughts. He forced himself again to read those blotted impetuous lines. Evidently--evidently, while writing to Lionel--the subject Sophy--the man's wrathful heart had been addressing itself to neither. A suspicion seized him; with that suspicion, hope. He would send the letter, and with but few words from himself--words that revealed his immense despair |
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