Clarence fell back. At that moment his hand was pressed. He turned,
and saw Talbot by his side. The kind old man had not suffered La
Meronville to be Linden's only nurse: notwithstanding his age and
peculiarity of habits, he had fixed his abode all the day in
Clarence's house, and at night, instead of returning to his own home,
had taken up his lodgings at the nearest hotel.

With a jealous and anxious eye to the real interest and respectability
of his adopted son, Talbot had exerted all his address, and even all
his power, to induce La Meronville, who had made her settlement
previous to Talbot's, to quit the house, but in vain. With that
obstinacy which a Frenchwoman when she is sentimental mistakes for
nobility of heart, the ci-devant amante of Lord Borodaile insisted
upon watching and tending one of whose sufferings she said and
believed she was the unhappy though innocent cause: and whenever more
urgent means of removal were hinted at La Meronville flew to the
chamber of her beloved, apostrophized him in a strain worthy of one of
D'Arlincourt's heroines, and in short was so unreasonably outrageous
that the doctors, trembling for the safety of their patient, obtained
from Talbot a forced and reluctant acquiescence in the settlement she
had obtained.

Ah! what a terrible creature a Frenchwoman is, when, instead of
coquetting with a caprice, she insists upon conceiving a grande
passion. Little, however, did Clarence, despite his vexation when he
learned of the bienveillance of La Meronville, foresee the whole
extent of the consequences it would entail upon him: still less did
Talbot, who in his seclusion knew not the celebrity of the handsome
adventuress, calculate upon the notoriety of her motions or the ill