Often and often have I said to myself since the last interview with Sir Neil Eccles, for it was the final one,—what had there been in our intercourse that should have made me so easily offended? and why did I separate from him under a feeling of indignant resentment, as if he had been a party to some deception against me? The reader, perhaps, can solve this mystery more to his own satisfaction than I can; but the sentiment mingled with my mourning, and I could not divest myself of thinking that there had been something sordid in the love which he undoubtedly cherished for his undivulged daughter. However, though the disclosure was a most painful occurrence— there was even a degree of mortification in it—it happened at a fortunate period, and I went straight to the duties of my business, that they might be finished with celerity.

The precise effect of the explanation which had taken place with Sir Neil I took no pains to ascertain. In the evening my own servant brought me an invitation to dinner for two or three days afterwards, but I declined it, and added to the apology for so doing, with the decision which I then experienced, that I thought we should not meet. “My feelings,” said I, “are lacerated by unhappy events, and their anguish easily exasperated.” He never afterwards invited me to his house.