it not at once forgiven? Every feeling but one is extinct in absence; every idea but one image is banished as profane. Lady Avondale had sacrificed herself and Glenarvon, as she then thought, for others; but she could not bring herself to endure the pang she had voluntarily inflicted.
She lived therefore but upon the letters she daily received from him; for those letters were filled with lamentations for her loss, and with the hope of a speedy return. Calantha felt no horror at her conduct. She deceived herself: conscience itself had ceased to reprove a heart so absorbed, so lost in the labyrinth of guilt. Lord Avondale wrote to her but seldom: she heard however with uneasiness that his present situation was one that exposed him to much danger; and after a skirmish with the rebels, when she was informed that he was safe, she knelt down, and said, "Thank God for it!" as if he had still been dear.
