had promised to instruct his successor in his duties, and could not honourably evade going to Marseilles, and the tour took place as we have seen. When at Marseilles, he heard, by chance, that the "Marchesa di Morello, once Signora Riccardini, had become the mother of a son, who died soon after he was born; that she was herself in very bad health in Rome, to which city she had removed in order to ensure the services of a celebrated physician."
Margarita married, and the mother of a son, seemed to startle the senses of Glentworth—strange! and sickening!—was she indeed the wife of another? "How could she have given the sacred name of father to any one, save him who had loved her so long and so constantly? who had borne so much for her sake, and was so closely united to her by congeniality of taste, feeling, and intellectual power—was she, really, gone for ever?"
It appeared as if he had heard with the ear, but not believed with the heart, till now, that all ties were dissolved between him and Margarita, whose image again rose as vividly to his mind's eye as if it were wafted by the wind, or brought by the sunbeam. He determined to avoid the possibility of seeing her, yet found it utterly impossible to return to England without knowing the actual state of her health, and the probability of her happiness; and after many a plan devised and abandoned, at length resolved to see her father, whom he always loved, and on whose information he could best rely.
