Page:Vivian Grey, Volume 2.djvu/236

'Tis an awkward business after all—even for the boldest. After an immense deal of negociation, and giving the party every opportunity of coming to an honourable understanding, the fatal letter is, at length, signed, sealed, and sent. You pass your morning at your second's apartments, pacing his drawing-room, with a quivering lip, and uncertain step. At length he enters with an answer, and while he reads, you endeavour to look easy, with a countenance merry with the most melancholy smile. You have no appetite for dinner, but you are too brave not to appear at table; and you are called out after the second glass by the arrival of your solicitor, who comes to alter your will. You pass a restless night, and rise in the morning as bilious as a Bengal general. Urged by impending fate, you make a desperate effort to accommodate matters, but in the contest between your pride and your terror, you, at the same time, prove that you've a coward, and fail