me. Now, considering the closeness of our connection and our old friendship, any appearance of that sort would have a much worse effect than anything else. Drive straight to your own house, and I will walk home from there. It is much better that Edward himself should see how little you dread observation."

I gave way in silence; but as we drew near home I looked anxiously at the windows, for I felt that after Edward's remarks on the preceding evening, to drive in that way with Henry, was very like braving him. I felt relieved at not seeing him, and as I walked through the hall I inquired if he was at home.

“No, Ma'am, Mr. Middleton called an hour ago to say that two gentlemen, beside Mr. Lovell, would dine here today; that I was to tell you so when you came home."

I went up to the drawing-room and sat down at the pianoforte, to try to get over the time till Edward's return as well as I could. I was bent upon mentioning to him the drive I had taken with Henry, as I quite agreed with the latter that any attempt at concealment would fatally endanger my future peace, and I had made the firmest resolution that nothing should ever lead me again into an unnecessary act of deceit. It was dressing-time, and still Edward was not come home. I walked impatiently up and down the room, and at last it grew so late that I was obliged to ring for my maid and to begin dressing.

While I was doing my hair, Edward rushed into the room in a great hurry, and said as he held the door open, "Ellen, love, dress as quick as you can, and go into the drawingroom. Sir Edmund Ardern and Escourt are arrived." Changing into French, he added, "I should not have asked Escourt, as I know you do not like him, if it had not been that when I pressed Ardern to come, he said before him that they were engaged to dine together at the club, which obliged me to invite them both."

I was inexpressibly annoyed, especially at having had no opportunity of informing Edward of my drive with Henry. As

soon as I was dressed I went to his room; but he desired me so impatiently to go to the drawing-room, that it took away my courage to tell him all I had intended to say.

Pride enabled me to make a strong effort over myself and to meet Mr. Escourt without embarrassment; but turning immediately away from him, I entered into conversation with Sir Edmund. He took up a newspaper and read it assiduously, till first Henry, and then Edward came into the room.

We went down to dinner, and nothing passed for some time but conversation on general subjects. I could not conquer my uneasiness. Whenever I heard the sound of Mr. Escourt's voice, or felt his eyes fixed upon me, a kind of shudder ran through me, and the cold dry manner in which I answered his questions, though each time I repented of it, still re-occurred the next minute. I knew that this was bad policy, and that it made Edward angry; but much as I had deceived in my life, I had never been able to dissemble; and the effort to do so in this case was beyond my strength.

After one of those pauses during which everybody wonders who will speak next, and which had been brought on by some short answer I had given to a question of Mr. Escourt, he abruptly turned to me and said, "By the way, Mrs. Middleton, you could decide a bet we made this morning, Ardern and I. Did you happen to observe if it was Mrs. Ernsley that we passed a few minutes after we met you on the King's-road this morning?"

"I don't know. I did not observe."

"Did you, Mr. Lovell?"

"It struck me that it was Mrs. Ernsley."

“Then I am afraid I have lost my bet, unless Mrs. Middleton would try to remember the contrary. Come, Mrs. Middleton, make an effort in my behalf. Did Mr. Lovell turn to you and say, 'Is not that Mrs. Ernsley?' or did he positively say, 'There is Mrs. Ernsley.' A great deal would depend upon that."

My mouth quivered while I repeated, with what must have had the appearance of ill-humour, that I remembered nothing

. about it. In vain I tried to turn the conversation; he continued to appeal alternately to Henry and to me about the gay appearance of the nursery gardens we had passed, and the style of architecture of the new church at Chelsea, until he had succeeded in plainly establishing the fact that we had been that day taking a long drive together. While this was going on I had not ventured to look at Edward; but when at last another subject was started, and I had heard him make some indifferent remark in his natural tone of voice, I raised my eyes to his. He was pale, and his lips were firmly compressed, but he exerted himself and talked a great deal. I was so entirely occupied in watching him, that, when Henry bent forward and said to me, "Sir Edmund is asking you to drink wine with him," I gave a violent start, and my hand shook so, that I could hardly hold the glass.

I left the room soon after, and as I walked into the drawing-room, its very look of brightness and comfort made my heart ache. It would have been a relief to cry, but I dared not give way; it would not do (that phrase which Henry was eternally repeating to me); it would not do to be found in tears. I would not think. I tried to play; but whether the tune was sad or gay it seemed equally to affect me. I took up book after book from the table; but whether it was "Macauley's Reviews," or "Southey's Poems," a volume of Shakespeare, or a book of sermons, there was in each page some passage or expression, which, by its eloquence or its simplicity, its gaiety or its grief, touched the spring of sorrow which was swelling up to the brink, and that was only kept down by a sort of passive resistance.

I took refuge in an Annual, and page after page of short tales and addresses to Finden's Beauties, I glanced over successfully, till the following lines, by Miss Landon, caught my eye, as I was rapidly turning over the leaves:

"I see the clouds pass o'er the moon, and my spirit
Grows dark with the terrors that round it are thrown;
O Surrey, whatever my lot may inherit,

I care not, so suffering but reach me alone."

I do not know that they are good lines

· very likely not

but they burst from the heart and from the lips like a groan or a sob, and they gave words to what I had felt since I had looked upon Edward's face, and seen in it, for the first time since our marriage, not anger, not sternness, but suffering.

I shut the book hastily, and snatched up a newspaper, as I heard the door of the first drawing-room open.

Henry brought me some flowers which I had left in the dining-room, and said to me in a low voice, "For Heaven's sake don't look so miserable! Exert yourself; this will never do."

There are sometimes particular phrases which try one, and jar upon one's feelings; and this last was of that number. I darted upon Henry a look of angry reproach, and said in a hurried manner, “It will never do to be goaded in this way! I cannot answer for what I may say if you stay here. Your presence and your advice are insults which drive me mad, and if you do not go, I feel that I shall lose my head."

As I spoke, I tore the flowers in my hand into pieces, which I flung one by one into the fire.

"Have mercy upon your bouquet, Mrs. Middleton! You are beheading those beautiful camellias in the most cruel manner," exclaimed Sir Edmund.

"The organ of destructiveness must be strong in you, fair lady,” observed Mr. Escourt, with one of his blandest smiles. Again an icy chill ran through me; but I hated this man so intensely, that not even terror could subdue me: and when Sir Edmund asked me if I had courage to kill an insect, I answered "There are insects so loathsome and contemptible, that to crush them is a pleasure."

I felt that I was making an odious speech; I saw in Edward's face an expression almost of disgust. I felt that I was sinking every moment in his opinion; perhaps losing ground in his affections. I felt that this was the work of those men who, one under the cover of a devoted attachment, the other of playful gallantry, were ruining and exposing me.

A spirit of reckless defiance took possession of me, and I completely lost my head. A torrent of words burst from my

lips, of which I hardly knew the meaning, as I uttered them I said there were crimes worse than murder. I said that to torture was worse than to kill: to make life a curse worse than to take it away. I pointed to the insect that was crawling on the table, and asked if it would not be mercy to kill it, and cruelty, damnable cruelty, to tear off a wing one day, and a limb the next, and so on, till nothing remained of its tortured frame but the quivering pulse of life. I spoke of men who die on the scaffold, or who drag on existence in jails and hulks, and whose hearts are not so hard, whose spirits are not so brutal, as those of others who come into our houses, who sit at our tables, with smiles on their lips and poison in their tongues, whose language is refined, and whose thoughts are devilish.

Strange and terrible words they were which I spoke in that hour; there was eloquence and power in them, for what is so eloquent as the pent-up agony of years, when at last it finds a vent? What is so powerful as the outpouring of the soul, when it breaks down the barriers it has long respected?

They quailed before my glance, those two men whose victim I was. Mr. Escourt's pale cheek was flushed, and Henry's grew pale. He trembled for himself and for me. The fabric which he had raised by his cunning, and maintained by his arts, was tottering to its base. Like to Samson in the temple of the Philistines, strength had returned to me in the hour of abasement; and I was dragging down upon him, and upon myself, the ruin which had so long hung over my head.

"I would advise you to choose another theme for the display of your eloquence, than the apology of murder.”

A convulsive shudder seized me as Edward addressed to me these terrible words. If he had charged me with the guilt of murder, I could not have trembled more violently.

66

"You are ill, Mrs. Middleton; I am sure you are ill!" exlaimed Sir Edmund, springing forward to support me.

I felt myself falling, and stretched out my hand to take hold of Edward's; when I grasped it, it was as cold as ice.