Under these painful circumstances, our remaining any longer at the
Hall was both useless and irksome--a source of misery to all.
My father ordered his horses the next morning, and I was carried back
to London, more dead than alive. A burning fever raged in my blood;
and the moment I reached my father's house, I was put to bed, and
placed under the care of a physician, with nurses to watch me night
and day. For three weeks I was in a state of delirium; and when I
regained my senses, it was only to renew the anguish which had
caused my disorder, and I felt any sentiment except gratitude for my
recovery.
My dear Clara had never quitted me during my confinement. I had taken
no medicine but from her hand. I asked her to give me some account of
what had happened. She told me that Talbot was gone--that my father
had seen Mr Somerville, who had informed him that Emily had received
a long letter from Eugenia, narrating every circumstance, exculpating
me, and accusing herself. Emily had wept over it, but still remained
firm in her resolution never to see me more--"And I am afraid, my dear
brother," said Clara, "that her resolution will not be very easily
altered. You know her character, and you should know something about
our sex; but sailors, they say, go round the world without going into
it. This is the only shadow of an excuse I can form for you, much as I
love and esteem you. You have hurt Emily in the nicest point, that in
which we are all the most susceptible of injury.
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