A Brother Revealed and Love Confessed — Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World

The walk to the Hot Wells is only Selwyn and Lord Orville, and his talk puts the assembly's uneasiness down. In the pump-room Macartney will not speak until she has courtsied twice. She apologises for the missed meetings, with Orville's anxious eyes moving between them, and Macartney turns from appeased to grateful. He asks to see her tomorrow. She refuses any new private meeting and hints why. Orville asks, with a serious smile, if he may enquire as her brother. The word appointment shocks her. He says he is interested not only in her concerns but in all her actions, and she cannot answer. Miss Belmont enters. Macartney goes white. Her first thought is that this is the woman he loved.

At a pamphlet shop she says she would give the universe for a few words with him, simply, and not aware of the force of it. Orville is hurt, then offers to help without the story. He will ask nothing, rely on her purity, and serve her blindfold. He is gone longer than he has been since she arrived. At the stair he tells her Macartney will call at three, as his visitor. Beaumont is still downstairs when the name comes in, so Orville receives him as his own guest, then leaves them with a book and a note. Macartney holds out the money again. Asked who the young lady was, he says he cannot refuse her. That lady is the daughter of Sir John Belmont, of his father. Her voice fails on the word brother, and she weeps. She tells him to spare the mistake of gratitude. Their circumstances are alike. Selwyn's entrance ends it, and by questions Selwyn draws the whole affair. The unwilling visits at the Branghtons', Evelina writes, introduced her to a near relation.

Then Villars's letter arrives, and the illusion breaks. She had begun to think esteem might be owned without danger. His own sentences answer her. Orville's sight is baneful to her repose, his society death to her future tranquillity. She will quit him. She will not take leave, because she does not trust the emotion she has just become conscious of. Tomorrow morning she sets off for Berry Hill. Only Selwyn and Beaumont are to know. Today she will stay in her room. Tomorrow morning she sets off, and she will not trust herself with a farewell.