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.

But though his fate was no longer connected with hers, this did not prevent the idea of his possible danger, from darkening her imagination with vain, yet insupportable terrors. She reasoned, she struggled against this impression. She set before herself the absurdity, the improbability of the supposition, that a tenderness, known to so few, scarcely acknowledged but to be checked, should reach the ears and excite the vengeance of an offended lover.

That impaired state of health, which prevented the admission of pleasurable impressions, rendered her susceptibility to distressing images only more painfully acute. The recollection of the sad, solemn, interview with Lord Torrendale, in which the afflicted parent pronounced her alone worthy to be the bride of his lost Strathallan, recurred to her imagination, and roused that latent spark of romantic superstition, which solitude, and her singular education, had contributed to foster in her mind.