My pen is running away into mere speculation.  Let me return to sober matter of fact.  It is certain that Sir Percival’s reception of my venturesome proposal to live with his wife was more than kind, it was almost affectionate.  I am sure Laura’s husband will have no reason to complain of me if I can only go on as I have begun.  I have already declared him to be handsome, agreeable, full of good feeling towards the unfortunate and full of affectionate kindness towards me.  Really, I hardly; know myself again in my new character of Sir Percival’s warmest friend.

20th.—­I hate Sir Percival!  I flatly deny his good looks.  I consider him to be eminently ill-tempered and disagreeable, and totally wanting in kindness and good feeling.  Last night the cards for the married couple were sent home.  Laura opened the packet and saw her future name in print for the first time.  Sir Percival looked over her shoulder familiarly at the new card which had already transformed Miss Fairlie into Lady Glyde—­smiled with the most odious self-complacency, and whispered something in her ear.  I don’t know what it was—­Laura has refused to tell me—­but I saw her face turn to such a deadly whiteness that I thought she would have fainted.  He took no notice of the change—­he seemed to be barbarously unconscious that he had said anything to pain her.  All my old feelings of hostility towards him revived on the instant, and all the hours that have passed since have done nothing to dissipate them.  I am more unreasonable and more unjust than ever.  In three words—­how glibly my pen writes them!—­in three words, I hate him.

21st.—­Have the anxieties of this anxious time shaken me a little, at last?  I have been writing, for the last few days, in a tone of levity which, Heaven knows, is far enough from my heart, and which it has rather shocked me to discover on looking back at the entries in my journal.

Perhaps I may have caught the feverish excitement of Laura’s spirits for the last week.  If so, the fit has already passed away from me, and has left me in a very strange state of mind.  A persistent idea has been forcing itself on my attention, ever since last night, that something will yet happen to prevent the marriage.  What has produced this singular fancy?  Is it the indirect result of my apprehensions for Laura’s future?  Or has it been unconsciously suggested to me by the increasing restlessness and irritability which I have certainly observed in Sir Percival’s manner as the wedding-day draws nearer and nearer?  Impossible to say.  I know that I have the idea—­surely the wildest idea, under the circumstances, that ever entered a woman’s head?—­but try as I may, I cannot trace it back to its source.

This last day has been all confusion and wretchedness.  How can I write about it?—­and yet, I must write.  Anything is better than brooding over my own gloomy thoughts.