repose peculiar to convalescence, Evadne gave herself up to rapturous gratitude and love.  But reflection returned with health.  She questioned him with regard to the motives which had occasioned his critical absence.  She framed her enquiries with Greek subtlety; she formed her conclusions with the decision and firmness peculiar to her disposition.  She could not divine, that the breach which she had occasioned between Raymond and Perdita was already irreparable:  but she knew, that under the present system it would be widened each day, and that its result must be to destroy her lover’s happiness, and to implant the fangs of remorse in his heart.  From the moment that she perceived the right line of conduct, she resolved to adopt it, and to part from Raymond for ever.  Conflicting passions, long-cherished love, and self-inflicted disappointment, made her regard death alone as sufficient refuge for her woe.  But the same feelings and opinions which had before restrained her, acted with redoubled force; for she knew that the reflection that he had occasioned her death, would pursue Raymond through life, poisoning every enjoyment, clouding every prospect.  Besides, though the violence of her anguish made life hateful, it had not yet produced that monotonous, lethargic sense of changeless misery which for the most part produces suicide.  Her energy of character induced her still to combat with the ills of life; even those attendant on hopeless love presented themselves, rather in the shape of an adversary to be overcome, than of a victor to whom she must submit.  Besides, she had memories of past tenderness to cherish, smiles, words, and even tears, to con over, which, though remembered in desertion and sorrow, were to be preferred to the forgetfulness of the grave.  It was impossible to guess at the whole of her plan.  Her letter to Raymond gave no clue for discovery; it assured him, that she was in no danger of wanting the means of life; she promised in it to preserve herself, and some future day perhaps to present herself to him in a station not unworthy of her.  She then bade him, with the eloquence of despair and of unalterable love, a last farewell.

All these circumstances were now related to Adrian and Idris.  Raymond then lamented the cureless evil of his situation with Perdita.  He declared, notwithstanding her harshness, he even called it coldness, that he loved her.  He had been ready once with the humility of a penitent, and the duty of a vassal, to surrender himself to her; giving up his very soul to her tutelage, to become her pupil, her slave, her bondsman.  She had rejected these advances; and the time for such exuberant submission, which must be founded on love and nourished by it, was now passed.  Still all his wishes and endeavours were directed towards her peace, and his chief discomfort arose from the perception that he exerted himself in vain.  If she were to continue inflexible in the line of conduct she now pursued, they must part.  The