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walked to the table. Now, Ellen, listen to me quietly; don't agitate yourself in this manner; for God's sake be calm. Alice should wake, what would she think?"

I struggled with myself, conquered my agitation, and made a sign to him to go on.

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"Just as I was loading the pistol," he said, some one knocked at the door; I instinctively seized on the case; and, putting it into the bureau, locked it up, and went to the door. I had expected to see the housemaid or my own servant, and almost staggered back when, on opening it, I saw Mrs. Tracy, Alice's grandmother. Her coming took me so entirely by surprise that I did not attempt at first to send her away, or to conceal from her that I was in a state of mental agitation. I sat down on the nearest chair, and stared at her in silence. She locked the door; and, sitting down opposite to me, said, in a calm and perfectly resolute tone of voice

“Mr. Henry, you have done something dreadful to-night, and now you intend to do something worse; but you shall not.'

'I tried to rouse myself. I stammered out that she was out of her mind-beside herself; that I was busy, worried; that I begged she would go; that I insisted upon it; and I tried to work myself into a passion. She got up, and looking me full in the face, said sternly

"Don't lie to me, Henry. I know you; I know what you have done; I know what you mean to do; but God has sent me to save you.'

"None of your cant, Tracy,' I now exclaimed, in a violent passion; leave me; this moment leave me.'

"Mr. Henry,' she said, 'do you remember this?' and she put something into my hands.

"What a strange change is sometimes wrought in us in an instant, Ellen! It was a small picture of my mother-of her who died in giving me birth—of her whose image had often stood between me and temptation, and delayed the ruin it could not avert. I had given this miniature to Tracy, and had charged her to keep it for me on the day when I first left home for school. It brought back to my mind a train of childish recollections, and vague reminiscences, which completely overcame me. I pressed the picture to my lips. My pride gave way; tears burst from my eyes; and in that moment of emotion I confessed the whole truth to her. She had guessed it all before.

"Her brother had been aware for some time past how deeply I was involved in debt. He knew the state of my affairs, and that I neither possessed, nor had the means of raising a single shilling. Escourt, with whom he had some previous acquaintance, had informed him, as they met at the door of the office, that I had just paid him the large sum of £3,500. These facts, coupled with my paleness and incoherence; my pretending that the key was at my lodgings, while he perfectly knew that my father had given it me a moment before in the office; above all, my telling him that I was not going home, and appointing him for the next morning, while, by dodging me in the streets, he ascertained that I had gone straight home;-all this had left no doubt in his mind as to the state of the case; and his sister happening to be in town, and at his house, he had imparted to her his surmises. All this she repeated to me; and then, crossing her arms and standing before me, she said, 'And now what is to be done?'

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Upon this followed a conversation, all the details of which I need not give you. It began by, her suggesting a variety of plans for extricating me from my difficulties, each one more hopeless and more unfeasible than the other. It ended by her proposing an arrangement, which she had long previously had in contemplation, and which the events of that evening had only hurried into maturity.

"And now that I am arrived at this point in my history, Ellen, it is necessary that I should explain to you some circumstances which can alone account for this strange proposal. My sister has told you, I believe, that I owed my life as a child to this woman's unwearied devotion. The kind of passionate attachment which she showed me, and the influence of a strong though uncultivated mind, kept up in me an habitual regard for her, which lasted beyond my childish years. When a boy at Eton, and even when I was at Oxford, I used often to write to her, and always to visit her whenever I went through London. On these occasions I always saw her beautiful little grand-daughter, whom she brought up in the strictest seclusion, and with the most anxious care. Even then I detected the dawning of a scheme which she had evidently formed, and dwelt upon, and cherished, till it had grown into a passionate desire to see Alice married to me. She used occasionally to throw out hints on the subject, which I treated

as jokes; and when she confided to me, two years before the time which I am speaking of, that her brother-in-law, an old miserly grocer at had left Alice fifteen hundred pounds, she looked anxiously into my face, and seemed disappointed at the indifference with which I received this communication, which she charged me to keep a secret. She lived so much alone, and the nature of her character was such, that whatever idea suggested itself strongly to her mind, took by degrees such a hold of it, that it absorbed all other considerations, and acquired a disproportionate magnitude. She admitted to herself no possibility of happiness for Alice but in a marriage with me. She had a superstitious conviction that such an event was predestined; she had dreamed dreams and had visions on the subject, and would gladly, I believe, have sacrificed her life to accomplish it.

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When, therefore, by a singular train of circumstances, she found me in a situation of hopeless difficulty and danger, from which nothing but the immediate possession of a large sum of money could rescue me, she offered me Alice's fortune and hand; but annexed to this proposal the following conditions. She said—

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Give me a written promise, signed by yourself, and witnessed by two persons whom I shall bring with me here, that you will marry her when I call upon you to do so. Give me, besides that, a written statement of all the circumstances which have led to this arrangement between us. Let it be signed and witnessed in the same manner. Execute a deed, by which, in the event of your dying before this marriage takes place, Alice will be entitled to whatever you possess, and in which you will give me full sanction to reveal all the particulars of this transaction to your family, and call upon them to make up to me for the sum which I shall now place at your disposal. Give me your promise that Alice shall never, as long as she lives, be made acquainted with the circumstances which have led to this compact, and neither before nor after her marriage have any reason to suppose that such an arrangement was entered upon. Do this, Mr. Henry, and by to-morrow morning ten thousand pounds, paid into your hands, will enable you to discharge your debts, and to reassume your position in the world.'

"I need not tell you, Ellen, how much my pride, how much my feelings revolted against the sale of myself which this

bargain involved, and, above all, how hateful it was to me to place myself in the power of this woman and of her brother; but situated as I was, there was no choice between death or disgrace on the one hand, and a blind acceptance of her conditions on the other.

"I strongly remonstrated, however, against the second of her stipulations, which seemed to have no other object but that of keeping me continually in her power; but she was determined to carry this point; and at last I consented to give up to her the letter I had already written to my father, which, together with the other papers, to be drawn up the next day, made out a case against me, such as would enable her at any moment to expose me to the world, and blast my reputation. These papers are, no doubt, to this day in her possession. I have never offended or displeased her without her recalling this fact to my recollection. Now it signifies comparatively little to me whether she has destroyed them or not. I told her she was in honor bound to do so on the day I married Alice; but whether she has or not I have not been able clearly to ascertain. Now she cannot use them against me without doing an injury to her; and on this subject I have ceased to trouble myself. Well, she left me that evening, having a second time saved my life; and grateful I should have been to her, had it not been for the spirit of distrust and hard bargaining which she had evinced throughout, and which modified my gratitude in a way which I regretted myself. The next morning she returned with her brother, and a lawyer, who drew up my will and saw me sign it, as well as my promise of marriage. John Harding looked gloomy and dark; he evidently disapproved of the whole affair, and thought his niece had the worst of the bargain, as I heard him muttering to himself; but he was always completely governed by his sister; and though he has since attempted to annoy me in different ways, he has never yet ventured to act for himself, except in that foolish attempt to frighten you at Brandon, which his son forced him into, and which he thought, if successful, might be more profitable to himself than the arrangement as it then stood. Now, Ellen, can you understand, that, after all this, in spite of Alice's beauty and of her merits, (for I do not attempt to deny them,) the idea of marrying her was always connected in my mind with so much that was painful and disgraceful in my past

life, that I shrunk from it with a morbid repugnance, which I vainly tried to conquer ?

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Now, Ellen-now I am come to the time when every feature of my history is closely connected with yours. Dearest Ellen, listen to me calmly; and if I speak of feelings which must not now be proclaimed to the world; if, in going over the ground which we once trod together, words of love and of regret escape my lips, forgive me! bear with me! and forget every thing but that I have loved and lost you—that I deserve to be pitied."

After a pause he said, “I have not asked you for a promise of secrecy; I am not afraid of being in your power; but, dear Ellen, there are facts which I am now going to reveal to you which concern you personally, and yet which you must give me a solemn promise never to reveal to any one.'

"If they concern me personally," I hastily replied, "surely I can decide for myself on that point; I will bind myself by no promise. You are not afraid of being in my power, and you are right; but you wish-forgive me, Henry, I must speak the truth—you wish to keep me in yours; and this is ungenerous.'

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When you know the truth," he answered coldly, "you will retract this unkind accusation. If you intend, which I suppose is the case, to marry Edward Middleton, you are no doubt anxious to keep no secret from him; but I protest unto you, Ellen, that if you do marry him, especially in ignorance of the real nature of your position, you will bring upon yourself, I said it to you once before,-incalculable misery! You do not believe me,-I see you do not!" he exclaimed, with impatience; "but you must believe me if I swear!" and snatching up Alice's Bible from the table near us, he laid his hand upon it, and swore that he spoke nothing but the truth.

I do not intend to marry Edward Middleton," I said; “I never will inflict upon him a wife, whose heart and whose life cannot be laid open before him. I would sooner die than reveal to him the dissimulation I have already practised, the threats I have heard from your lips, the words of love I have been compelled to endure from you,-from you, the husband of Alice, of whom you are as unworthy, as I am of him. No, I shall never be Edward's wife; I never will bring sorrow and disgrace upon him. I have stooped to deceit; I am entangled in falsehood; I must drink of the poisoned cup which you

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