“One more Unfortunate”

The Fates did not ordain¹ that the plan should succeed which Lord Highgate’s friends had devised for Lady Clara’s rescue or respite². He was bent³ upon one more interview with the unfortunate lady; and in that meeting the future destiny of their luckless lives was decided⁴. On the morning of his return home, Barnes Newcome had information that Lord Highgate, under a feigned⁵ name, had been staying in the neighbourhood of his house, and had repeatedly been seen in the company of Lady Clara. She may have gone out to meet him but for one hour more. She had taken no leave of her children on the day when she left her home, and, far from making preparations for her own departure, had been engaged in getting the house ready for the reception of members of the family, whose arrival her husband announced as speedily to follow his own. Ethel and Lady Anne and some of the children were coming. Lord Farintosh’s mother and sisters were to follow. It was to be a reunion previous to the marriage which was closer to unite the two families. Lady Clara said Yes to her husband’s orders; rose mechanically to obey his wishes and arrange for the reception of the guests; and spoke⁶ tremblingly to the housekeeper⁷ as her husband gibed⁸ at her. The little ones had been consigned⁹ to bed early and before Sir Barnes’s arrival. He did not think fit to see them in their sleep; nor did their mother. She did not know, as the poor little creatures left her room in charge of their nurses, that she looked on them for the last time. Perhaps, had she gone to their bedsides that evening, had the wretched panic-stricken soul been allowed leisure to pause, and to think, and to pray, the fate of the morrow might have been otherwise, and the trembling balance of the scale have inclined to right’s side. But the pause was not allowed her. Her husband came and

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