On gaining the house I found that Sir Gordon had just driven from the door. Miss Howard, who for two days had been indisposed, was still in her room. Resolving, then, to make my explanation in writing, I went to my room; on the table lay a letter addressed to me, the writing of which was scarcely dry. It ran thus:--
“If I, in part, foresaw the possibility of what your words to-day assured me, and yet did not guard against the hazard, the sad circumstances of my lot in life are all I can plead in my favour. I have never ceased to reproach myself that I had not been candid and open with you at first, when our intimacy was fresh. Afterwards, as it became friendship, the avowal was impossible. I must not trust myself with more. I have gone from home for a day or two, that when we meet again the immediate memory of our last interview should have been softened. Be to me--to her, also--as though the words were never spoken; nor withdraw any portion of your affection from those you have rescued from the greatest of all calamities.
The mystery grew darker and more impenetrable; harassing, maddening suspicions, mixed themselves up in my brain, with thoughts too terrible for endurance. I saw that, in Sir Gordon’s error as to my intentions, he had unwittingly disclosed the existence of a secret--a secret whose meaning seemed fraught with dreadful import; that he would never have touched upon this mysterious theme, save under the false impression my attempted proposal had induced, was clear enough; and, that thus I had unwittingly wrung from him an avowal which, under other circumstances, he had never been induced to make.
I set about to think over every word I had used in our last interview--each expression I had employed, torturing the simplest phrases by interpretations the most remote and unlikely, that thereby some clue should present itself to this mystery: but, charge my memory how I could, reflect and ponder as I might, the words of his letter had a character of more deep and serious meaning than a mere refusal of my proposition, taken in what sense it might, could be supposed to call for. At moments, thoughts would flash across my brain so terrible in their import, that had they dwelt longer I must have gone mad. They were like sudden paroxysms of some agonising disease, coming and recurring at intervals. Just as one of these had left me, weak, worn out, and exhausted, a carriage, drawn by four post-horses, drew up to the door of the Villa, and the instant after my servant knocked at my door, saying, “La Comtesse de Favancourt is arrived, sir, and wishes to see you.”