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Before I went I told him that while we were staying at the Moores' I was anxious that our engagement should not be openly acknowledged, as in so small a party, and with people whom I knew so little intimately, it was pleasanter to me not to have to talk over the subject. He submitted to my wish, and I left him to go to my own room and devise there some means of escaping from the difficulties in which I had entangled myself more fatally than ever.

It was not till in the silence of the night I sat alone and undisturbed that I realised to myself the occurrences of the day, or saw in its full force the importance of what I had done. There I sat, Edward's affianced wife, and any moment after this fact was made public my persecutor might seek him or Mr. Middleton and tell them that but for me Julia would be still alive; and when summoned to deny the foul charge and confound the vile calumniator, should I say: 'Yes, I struck the helpless child in my anger, but I meant not to kill her; I have buried the secret in my heart; day by day I have received her father's blessings and her mother's kisses in hypocritical silence. I have listened, Edward, to your words of love-I have promised to be your wife—with a lie in my mouth and deceit in my heart; but now I am found out, and I implore mercy at your hands, and that you will believe me when I say that I did not mean to kill my cousin;' and maybe, I exclaimed, interrupting myself with a burst of anguish-maybe he would not believe me! There is no medium in Edward's judgment when truth is concerned; implicit confidence on the one hand, unmitigated condemnation on the other. Oh how dreadful it would be to meet his eyes, from which love would have vanished, and to feel that no protestations, no appeals, could reach his heart, hardened as it would be in that hour against the miserable deceiver who had usurped its tenderness and betrayed its trust!

After an hour of harassing indecision I determined to consult Henry, and, sitting down at a table near the open window, I wrote to him the following letter :—

'The last time I saw you, my dear Henry, you gave me reason to hope that I might in future consider you as a friend. You bade me open my heart to you, and seek your aid when new difficulties should beset my path. The moment is come when I must do so; and if you will not, if you cannot save me, nothing can. I once told you that I never intended to marry Edward; and believe me (you know I have ever spoken the truth to you, Henry, even at the risk of rousing your utmost anger)-believe me when I say that then, and even as late as twelve hours ago, such a resolution was the steady purpose of my soul. An involuntary spontaneous acknowledgment of affection which escaped me in a moment of imminent peril to him, incurred in rescuing me from a similar peril, was followed by an assumption on his part that our marriage was to be the natural result of such a confession. My uncle considered it in the same light; and I found myself involved in an engagement which, in cool blood, I could never have contracted. An attack of illness, resulting from the events of the morning, has since kept Edward in a state which would have made any extraordinary emotion dangerous in the extreme. Against my will, and at the same time impressing this warning upon me, my aunt took me to him; and in terror for his health, with outward calmness and inward shame and misgivings, I gave the promise which must lead to my ruin, unless you can save me. I do not ask your aid, Henry, as a girl who wishes to marry her lover, and frets at the obstacles in her way. No; if at this moment I could cancel the events of this day, and place myself again in the position in which I stood yesterday, I would do so; but as it is, on either side I see nothing now but disgrace and

misery; and from these I implore you to rescue me. I do not know how far you have the power to do so. I cannot help thinking that your influence with that terrible woman must be great: hitherto I have doubted your willingness to exert it in my behalf; but, in the circumstances in which I now stand, I feel a strong confidence that what you can do for me you will do. I have obtained from Edward that our engagement shall be kept a secret for a few days, which will give you time to act in my behalf, and to communicate with me on the subject. Obliged to conceal the torturing anxiety of my soul from those about me, miserable in the midst of what ought to be my happiness, I feel some comfort in speaking openly to you, and in looking to you for aid, for consolation, and for sympathy. You know my sufferings; you know my guilt and my innocence, my life's deceit and my soul's truth. You will pity me, you will help me; and in this hope I make my appeal to you.

E. M.'

I debated some time with myself as to the means of sending this letter unobserved and undetected. After a few minutes of anxious consideration, I recollected that Mrs. Hatton (the companion of my journey to Dorsetshire the year before) was staying with her sister, the wife of a surgeon, in London; and it occurred to me that by enclosing it to her, and requesting her to put it herself into Henry's hands, I should attain my object, and expose myself to no risk of discovery, as I could rely upon her discretion, and was certain that she would put only the most benevolent construction on my strange request. I accordingly wrote to her these few lines:

:

'MY DEAR MRS. HATTON—As you are the kindest person in the world, I am sure you will not be angry with me for giving you a little trouble. Do me the kindness to take this

letter yourself to Henry Lovell, and give it into his own. hands; and do not mention to any one that I have entrusted you with this commission, as it would defeat my purpose if it was known that I had written to him, or heard from him in reply. He will probably entrust you with his answer; and I cannot say how much obliged to you I shall be for undertaking this little commission. Yours, dear Mrs. Hatton, very truly, E. M.'

As I sealed these two letters, and directed the cover to Mrs. Hatton, I felt that for the first time I was stooping to positive artifice; and that, too, at the very moment when Edward's words were still ringing in my ears. Disgusted with myself, I threw down my pen; and turning my flushed cheeks and aching head to the window, I tried to catch the night breeze, which was gently rustling among the leaves of the catalpas. When I went to sleep that night it was to dream over and over again that I was reading Henry's answer to my letter; sometimes it was such as to drive me to despair; sometimes it exceeded my most sanguine hopes; each time that I awoke I glanced at the table on which mine was lying to convince myself that nothing real had hitherto justified these alternations of fear and hope—that made me feel in the morning as if I had gone through a life of agitation, instead of a few hours of restless sleep.

When my maid came in to call me I told her to put my letter into the post-bag, and sent her to inquire how Edward had passed the night. The answer which she brought me was that the fever still continued strong, but that Mr. Middleton seemed calmer and more composed than the day before, -'more comfortable-like,' was her expression.

I dressed myself hastily, and finding that my aunt was not yet awake, I went down into the garden and walked to the spot where my fate had been sealed-for good or for evil

I know not yet. As I looked upon the bank where Edward had placed me out of reach of so appalling a danger—as I stood again on that spot where I had seen his blood on the ground—as I knelt against the bench where we had sat together and hastily murmured over the form of prayer which I was accustomed to utter, more as a sort of charm than as a direct address to God-I felt then that to part with him would be, after all, the worst misfortune that could befall me; and a kind of fierce resolution came over me to struggle to the last—to marry him in spite of all dangers; and even the devil whispered to me at that moment that if denounced and accused I might still deny the charge, accuse my accuser in her turn-charge her with having invented a calumnious lie-and with Henry's aid (which one look, one kind word, from me could command), ride off triumphantly and defy them all. But as the thought passed through my mind I shuddered at the rapid strides I was making in falsehood, and felt a horror of myself which I can hardly describe. There was I, kneeling in mock homage before God—that God who had saved both Edward aud myself from a fate worse than death-while bad passions were raging in my soul, and thoughts of evil working in my mind.

The posture of prayer, the words which I had mechanically uttered, brought on one of those sudden and unaccountable revulsions of feeling which sometimes succeed the fiercest assaults of the temper, as if our guardian angel had wrestled with the spirit of evil, and driven him away for the time. I remembered her to whom much was forgiven because she had loved much; and as I thought of that Saviour, that man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, at whose feet she knelt ―ay, even while seven foul fiends were struggling in her heart-I longed to kneel before Him too in deep prostration of spirit, and lay all my sorrows, all my sins, all my difficulties, at His sacred feet, bathing them as she did with tears,

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