The ice being now broken, as Mrs. Ormond expressed it, and remembering que ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute, she was in constant expectation of seeing Ernest again at Holme Court. But when a fortnight elapsed, and then three weeks, without any tidings of him, her surprise was extreme. Ella herself was not entirely exempt from sharing in the same feeling. If he came not, she thought he might have written; he might have afforded them some indication by which to judge of his future intentions: a silence and an avoidance so absolute were incomprehensible, and condemned her to a state of suspense / she found it difficult to bear without murmuring.

An explanation, however, came but too soon. Mrs. Fitzmaurice was commissioned one morning to announce to her sister, with all possible gentleness and caution, that her husband had just received a letter from Ernest, dated London, containing the astounding information, that he was on the eve of setting out for the continent; that he renounced all pretension to Miss Ormond's hand, and had caused a document to be drawn up and properly authenticated, by which he made a resignation in full of every claim he had been invested with by Sir Everard's Will, surrendering the whole, now and in perpetuity, to his niece.

This was indeed a blow! It struck Ella to the heart; for whether regarded as an indirect avowal of conscious guilt, or merely as an indication of his hopelessness to prove his innocence, it equally tended to part them; and what to her was an additionally afflicting consideration, it impoverished whilst it made an exile of him. Personal mortification she experienced none; this was not a line of conduct, she well knew, prompted by indifference or aversion, though whence exactly it originated, it was impossible to decide. At all events, it manifested a disinterestedness / of character, which, whilst deeply lamenting its effects, she could not but warmly admire.