ABSTRACT
When Margaret had finished, and had dispatched this letter, she felt herself more at her ease. She had put a violence on herself, and achieved a conquest, of the practicability of which in her case nothing could have assured her, short of the actual experiment. This, when the experiment was completed, was her first feeling. But, the next day, and the day after, her satisfaction abated. Having discharged to the full her duty to her father, and prepared for the event against which her very soul revolted, she began to think principally, almost exclusively, of her lover. She set herself to calculate the time at which her letter / would reach him, and at which she might receive his answer. She thought of his surprise, the distresses he would suffer, the fatal blow he would sustain, and the upbraidings with which he would overwhelm her.
