ABSTRACT
A severe illness, the consequence of the dreadful scene she had recently gone through, left Matilda in a state of weakness and depression, which rendered her recovery at once slow and doubtful. The idea of the obligation imposed by her vow, even if one, taken under such circumstances, could be supposed binding, was not what could materially affect her spirits. Was not Strathallan already dead / to her? He was – and in that reflection, at once her consolation and despair, the loss of all that in this world she valued seemed included.
