The sight of the returned sonnets checked the eager flow of his blood; he was prepared for what he afterwards read.
'Then let her meet her fate,'-- so ran his thoughts when he had perused the cold note, unassociable with the Adela he imagined in its bald formality.

'Only life can teach her.' The other letter he suspected to be from Letty Tew, as it was.
'DEAR MR.

ELDON,--I cannot help writing a line to you, lest you should think that I did not keep my promise in the way you understood it.

I did indeed.

You will hear from her; she preferred to write herself, and perhaps it was better; I should only have had painful things to say.