The arrival of the picture itself might have explained all that related to it, had De Courcy chosen to have it so explained. But he turned his eye from the unpleasing sight, and sheltered his hopes by a hundred treasured instances of love which had scarcely any existence but in his fancy.
His efforts to be cheerful were however less successful, after Laura, in a few melancholy lines, informed Miss De Courcy that Montreville's increased illness made their return to Scotland more uncertain than ever. He imagined his dear Laura the solitary attendant of a sickbed; no kind voice to comfort, no friendly face to cheer her; perhaps in poverty, that poverty increased too by the artifice which he had used to lessen it. He grew anxious, comfortless, and at length really miserable. Every day the arrival of the letters was looked for with extreme solicitude in hope of more cheering news; but every day brought disappointment, for Laura wrote no more. His mother shared in his anxiety, and increased it by expressing her own. She feared that Miss Montreville was ill, and unable to write; and the image of Laura among strangers, sick and in poverty, obliterated Montague's prudent resolutions of trusting himself no more in the presence of his beloved. He set out for London, and arrived at the door of Laura's lodgings about an hour after she had quitted them.
Mrs Stubbs, of whom he made personal inquiries, was abundantly communicative. She gave him, as far as it was known to her, a full history of Laura's adventures since he had seen her; and, where she was deficient in facts, supplied the blank by conjecture. With emotion indescribable, he listened to a coarse account of Miss Montreville's wants and labours. 'How could you suffer all this?' cried he, indignantly, when he was able to speak. 'Times are hard, Sir,' returned Mrs Stubbs, the jolly purple deepening in her cheeks. 'Besides, Miss Montreville had always such an air with her, that I could not for my very heart have asked her to take pot-luck with us.'
The colour faded from De Courcy's face as Mrs Stubbs proceeded to relate the constant visits of Hargrave. 'I'll warrant,' said she, growing familiar as she perceived that she excited interest, 'I'll warrant he did not come here so often for nothing. People must have ears, and use them too; and I heard him myself swearing to her one day, that he loved her better than his life, or something to that purpose; and that, if she would live with him, he would make her dreams pleasant, or some such stuff as that; and now, as sure as can be, she has taken him at his word, and gone to him.'