Pembroke affectionately resumed: "But I hope, dear Sobieski, you will
never leave me more. I have an excellent father, who, when he is made
acquainted with my obligations to you and your noble family, will
glory in loving you as a son."
Having subdued "the woman in his heart," Thaddeus raised his head
with an expression in his eyes far different from that which had
chilled the blood of Pembroke on their first encounter.
"Circumstances," said he, "dear Somerset, have made me greatly injure
you. A strange neglect on your side, since we separated at Villanow,
gave the first blow to my confidence in your friendship. Though I
lost your direct address, I wrote to you often, and yet you
persevered in silence. After having witnessed the destruction of all
that was dear to me in Poland, and then of Poland itself, when I came
to England I wished to give your faithfulness another chance. I
addressed two letters to you. I even delivered the last at your door
myself, and I saw you in the window when I sent it in."
"By all that is sacred," cried Pembroke, vehemently, and amazed, "I
never saw any letter from you! I wrote you many. I never heard of
those you mention. Indeed, I should even now have been ignorant of
the palatine's and your mother's cruel fate had it not been too
circumstantially related in the newspapers."
"I believe you," returned Thaddeus, drawing an agonizing sigh at the
dreadful picture which the last sentence recalled.
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