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lead those attached to the car into irremediable ruin.
After a discussion on this subject, which lasted for several hours, he took
leave of his friends, and returned to town, unwilling to meet Perdita
before us, conscious, as we all must be, of the thoughts uppermost in the
minds of both. Perdita prepared to follow him with her child. Idris
endeavoured to persuade her to remain. My poor sister looked at the
counsellor with affright. She knew that Raymond had conversed with her; had
he instigated this request?--was this to be the prelude to their eternal
separation?--I have said, that the defects of her character awoke and
acquired vigour from her unnatural position. She regarded with suspicion
the invitation of Idris; she embraced me, as if she were about to be
deprived of my affection also: calling me her more than brother, her only
friend, her last hope, she pathetically conjured me not to cease to love
her; and with encreased anxiety she departed for London, the scene and
cause of all her misery.
The scenes that followed, convinced her that she had not yet fathomed the
obscure gulph into which she had plunged. Her unhappiness assumed every day
a new shape; every day some unexpected event seemed to close, while in fact
it led onward, the train of calamities which now befell her.
The selected passion of the soul of Raymond was ambition. Readiness of
talent, a capacity of entering into, and leading the dispositions of men;
earnest desire of distinction were the awakeners and nurses of his
ambition. But other ingredients mingled with these, and prevented him from
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