Page:Glenarvon (Volume 3).djvu/182

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

of the frame, and cause the phrenzy of despair.

The duke was calm; but Lord Avondale felt with bitterness his injury and his loss. The sovereign who has set his seal to the sentence of death passed upon the traitor who had betrayed him, ofttimes in after-life has turned to regret the friend, the companion he has lost. "She was consigned to me when pure and better than those who now upbraid her. I had the guidance of her; and I led her myself into temptation and ruin. Can a few years have thus spoiled and hardened a noble nature! Where are the friends and flatterers, Calantha, who surrounded thee in an happier hour? I was abandoned for them: where are they now? Is there not one to turn and plead for thee—not one! They are gone in quest of new amusement. Some other is the favourite of the day. The fallen are remembered only by their faults."