Matilda had hardly time to strengthen herself in these praiseworthy resolutions, when she was called upon to try their force in action. On being summoned the following morning to attend a visitor in the parlour, she was startled at seeing her cousin, Sir Harold: the servant had not named him to her, or she had not caught his name. Her mother's presence, however, abated the involuntary terror with which he would otherwise have inspired her. But it was not easy long to retain terror, or even to harbour resentment, against her unhappy cousin. There was something so helplessly interesting in his wildly mournful wanderings, so attaching in the affectionate earnestness of his look, whenever he addressed her, that it was impossible, when in his presence, to recollect he was the fatal obstacle to her most distant hope of happiness; – the evil genius that threatened with destruction the opening bud of promised joy, even if it should dare to expand, after the storm that marked its early morning.

Sir Harold looked ill and fatigued; but his manner, now singularly calm, if not collected, contrasted, in Matilda's mind but too forcibly, with the terrific violence, which in their last interview had given her peace such a fatal blow. ‘You are surprised, my fair cousin,’ he said, ‘to see me so soon returned, and it is true I must not long remain with you; they already begin to murmur at my stay. But though not free often to move, I must indulge sometimes in a short wandering from the circle where I am bound. It is now a month since I have seen you, and / in that space of time I have traced a thousand miles.’

On Mrs. Melbourne's expressing her surprise at what she heard, for she did not know of his having been any where but in Derbyshire, he explained that the constant exercise he took, both day and night, around the spot that he inhabited there, was alone what he alluded to.