lover?--to some one who in her innocence will see only forwardness; and
who, far from protecting her as I should have done, will regard her but as
the plaything of an hour, and cast her forth the moment his passion is
sated!--Sated! O bitter thought, that the head of another should rest
upon that bosom now so wholly mine! After all, I have, in vainly adopting
a seeming and sounding virtue, merely renounced my own happiness to leave
her to the chances of being permanently rendered unhappy, and abandoned to
want, shame, destitution, by another!"

These disagreeable and regretful thoughts were, in turn, but weakly
combated by the occasional self-congratulation that belongs to a just or
generous act, and were varied by a thousand conjectures--now of anxiety,
now of anger--as to the silence of Lucilla. Sometimes he thought---but
the thought only glanced partially across him, and was not distinctly
acknowledged--that she might seek an interview with him ere he departed;
and in this hope he did not retire to rest till the dawn broke over the
ruins of the mighty and breathless city. He then flung himself on a sofa
without undressing, but could not sleep, save in short and broken
intervals.

The next day, he put off his departure till noon, still in the hope of
hearing from Lucilla, but in vain. He could not flatter himself with the
hope that Lucilla did not know the exact time for his journey--he had
expressly stated it. Sometimes he conceived the notion of seeking her
again; but he knew too well the weakness of his generous resolution; and,
though infirm of thought, was yet virtuous enough in act not to hazard it
to certain defeat. At length in a momentary desperation, and muttering
reproaches on Lucilla for her fickleness and inability to appreciate the
magnanimity of his conduct, he threw himself into his carriage, and bade
adieu to Rome.