A complete explanation was the
consequence; and Thaddeus, who had not been more sanguine in his
hopes than was his lovely mistress in hers, now allowed the clouds
over his so lately darkened eyes to disappear.
Impatient to see these two beings, so dear to his soul, repose
confidently in each other's affection, the moment Sir Robert returned
to the house, he asked his sister for Miss Beaufort. Miss Dorothy
replied that she had seen her about half an hour ago retire to her
own apartments; the baronet, therefore, sent a servant to beg that
she would meet him in the library.
This message found her in a paroxysm of distress. She reproached
herself for her imprudence, her temerity, her unwomanly conduct, in
having given away her heart to a man who she again began to torment
herself by believing had never desired it. She remembered that her
weakness, not her sincerity, had betrayed this humiliating secret to
Sir Robert; and nearly distracted, she lay on the bed, almost hoping
that she was in a miserable dream, when her maid entered with the
baronet's commands.
Disdaining herself, and determining to regain some portion of her own
respect by steadily opposing all her uncle's deluding hopes, with an
assumed serenity she arrived at the study-door. She laid her hand on
the lock, but the moment it yielded to her touch, all her firmness
vanished.
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