The next morning, while Montreville and his daughter were expecting with some anxiety the arrival of their daily visitor, a note was brought which De Courcy had left in Audley Street, to be delivered after his departure. Though nearly illegible, from the agitation in which it was written, it contained nothing but the simple information, that he had been suddenly obliged to leave London. It assigned no reason for his journey – it fixed no period for his absence; and Montreville endeavoured to hope that his return would not be distant. But day after day passed heavily on, and De Courcy came not. Montreville again began to feel himself a solitary deserted being; again became dejected; again became the victim of real debility and fancied disease.

All Laura's endeavours failed to animate him to cheerfulness, or rouse him to employment. If he permitted her to remain by him, he seemed rather to endure than to enjoy her presence, repressed with a languid monosyllable her attempts at conversation, or passed whole hours in listless silence. Laura, who foreboded the worst consequences from the indulgence of this depression, endeavoured to persuade him that he might now safely attempt a voyage to Scotland, and predicted beneficial effects from the sea air. But Montreville answered her with displeasure, that such an exertion would certainly destroy him, and that those who were themselves in high health and spirits, could not judge of the feelings, nor sympathize with the weakness of disease. The reproach had no more justice than is usual with the upbraidings of the sickly; for Laura's spirits shared every turn of her father's, though her stronger mind could support with grace the burden that weighed his to the earth. She desisted, however, from a subject which she saw that, for the present, he would not bear, and confined her endeavours to persuading him to undertake some light occupation, or to walk in the little garden that belonged to the house.