Louis turned round to utter persuasions so foreign to his heart; but a severe look from Marcella checked him: yet he drew near. She again turned her eyes upon him; but there was an expression of distress in his face which disarmed her resentment; and being sensible to an undefinable sympathy, for whatever might be his motives for this, to her, unfeeling haste, she paused a moment to consider what she should say. A certain spirit of female dignity, that resisted, while it felt too powerfully his influence over her, and something of her usual habit of self-denial, impelled her to rally all her strength at once. And, alike contemning her body's feebleness, and that weakness of heart which had been its origin, she rose into a sitting position on the sofa; and, with every nerve braced, and a lofty, though compassionate air, she interrupted him as he began to speak.
"You are very kind, Marquis, to intend to obey my mother. But I am well, and shall proceed." Louis made an attempt to answer, but again she intercepted his first words; and, rising, rung the bell.
"Tell my mother," said she to the person who entered, "that I am ready to attend her to the carriage."
Louis looked on her with agitation. She observed him, and turned away her head, though with an air of unaffected serenity. Marcella was always serene after any struggle in her soul, when the conquest was gained.
The Marchioness, on receiving the message hurried into the room, and found her arguments for delay, answered in every point by the steady step and cheerful voice of her daughter. Ferdinand rejoiced in the change, without investigating the cause; but his mother looked towards Louis. She saw that it was some observation Marcella had made upon his conduct, which had produced this dangerous resolution. Experience convinced her, that so quick an alteration could not arise naturally; but she feared to oppose the effect, and durst not conjecture the cause.
In half an hour, they were re-seated in the carriage; and, by the orders of Ferdinand, who had received a whispered command from his sister, the drivers kept their horses to their fullest speed.
Little conversation passed in this day's journey. The spell of the two former ones was broken by the check in the morning. Louis wondered how he could have felt the _ignis fatuus_ hope which that check had extinguished; and, with proportioned despondency, he silently counted the hours which, he believed, had too surely cut him off from the last moments of his friend.