ABSTRACT
Agonized by apprehensions which the vivacity of her disposition, only served to present to her imagination, in a greater variety of torturing forms, without being sufficiently powerful, as she had formerly found it, to diminish the force of their impression, Arbella woke haggard and unrefreshed after a miserable night, in which her fancy had pictured to her every possible danger to which her beloved Fitzroy might be exposed. She now saw him pale, bleeding, sinking beneath the Major’s sword; now, turning unhurt to receive the embraces and congratulations of his family; but in both scenes, repelling her eager affection, with an accusing look, and an action that marked, he considered her as the cause of the hazard which he had encountered. On her first arousing from this state of painful stupor, all she experienced was a confused consciousness, that some evil was impending over Spencer; but she too soon recovered a full and distinct apprehension of the cause she had to experience uneasiness on his account. The remembered gaieties of the preceding day, only added to the anguish of the present moment. She recalled the part she bore in them, with shame and regret. How poor the pleasure, how paltry the triumph, purchased perhaps with the blood of Fitzroy; the thought was misery.
