19th.—­A letter from my lawyer, full of professional subtleties and delays.  I have no patience to enumerate them.  We move to Belgium to-morrow.  Not on our way back to England—­Stella is so little desirous of leaving the Continent that we are likely to be married abroad.  But she is weary of the perpetual gayety and glitter of Paris, and wants to see the old Belgian cities.  Her mother leaves Paris with regret.  The liveliest woman of her age that I ever met with.

Brussels, May 7.—­My blessing on the old Belgian cities.  Mrs. Eyrecourt is so eager to get away from them that she backs me in hurrying the marriage, and even consents, sorely against the grain, to let the wedding be celebrated at Brussels in a private and unpretending way.  She has only stipulated that Lord and Lady Loring (old friends) shall be present.  They are to arrive tomorrow, and two days afterward we are to be married.

*****

(An inclosure is inserted in this place.  It consists of the death-bed confession of Mr. Winterfield’s wife, and of the explanatory letter written by the rector of Belhaven.  The circumstances related in these documents, already known to the reader, are left to speak for themselves, and the Extracts from the Diary are then continued.)

*****

Bingen, on the Rhine, May 19.—­Letters from Devonshire at last, which relieve my wretchedness in some small degree.  The frightful misfortune at Brussels will at least be kept secret, so far as I am concerned.  Beaupark House is shut up, and the servants are dismissed, “in consequence of my residence abroad.”  To Father Newbliss I have privately written.  Not daring to tell him the truth, I leave him to infer that my marriage engagement has been broken off, he writes back a kind and comforting letter.  Time will, I suppose, help me to bear my sad lot.  Perhaps a day may come when Stella and her friends will know how cruelly they have wronged me.

London, November 18,1860.—­The old wound has been opened again.  I met her accidentally in a picture gallery.  She turned deadly pale, and left the place.  Oh, Stella!  Stella!

London, August 12, 1861.—­Another meeting with her.  And another shock to endure, which I might not have suffered if I had been a reader of the marriage announcements in the newspapers.  Like other men, I am in the habit of leaving the marriage announcements to the women.

I went to visit an agreeable new acquaintance, Mr. Romayne.  His wife drove up to the house while I was looking out of window.  I recognized Stella!  After two years, she has made use of the freedom which the law has given to her.  I must not complain of that, or of her treating me like a stranger, when her husband innocently introduced us.  But when are were afterward left together for a few minutes—­no!  I cannot write down the merciless words she said to me.  Why am I fool enough to be as fond of her as ever?

Beaupark, November 16.—­Stella’s married life is not likely to be a happy one.  To-day’s newspaper announces the conversion of her husband to the Roman Catholic Faith.  I can honestly say I am sorry for her, knowing how she has suffered, among her own relatives, by these conversions.  But I so hate him, that this proof of his weakness is a downright consolation to me.