chair, her green face--green that night--in
its grief, its remorse, and its horror, looking nearly as dark as her
stockings.

She broke into a subdued wail.

"God be merciful to this dishonored house!"

Mr. Justice Hare turned into the gate between twelve and one--turned in
with a jaunty air; for the justice was in spirits, he having won nine
sixpences, and his friend's tap of ale having been unusually good. When
he reached his bedroom, he told Mrs. Hare of a chaise and four which had
gone tearing past at a furious pace as he was closing the gate, coming
from the direction of East Lynne. He wondered where it could be going at
that midnight hour, and whom it contained.

CHAPTER XXV.

CHARMING RESULTS.

Nearly a year went by.

Lady Isabel Carlyle had spent it on the continent--that refuge for such
fugitives--now moving about from place to place with her companion, now
stationary and alone. Quite half the time--taking one absence with the
other--he had been away from her, chiefly in Paris, pursuing his own
course and his own pleasure.

How fared it with Lady Isabel? Just as it must be expected to fare, and
does fare, when a high-principled gentlewoman falls from her pedestal.
Never had she experienced a moment's calm, or peace, or happiness, since
the fatal night of quitting her home. She had taken a blind leap in a
moment of wild passion, when, instead of the garden of roses it had been
her persuader's pleasure to promise her she would fall into, but which,
in truth, she had barely glanced at, for that had not been her moving
motive, she had found herself plunged into a yawning abyss of horror,
from which there was never more any escape--never more, never more. The
very instant--the very night of her departure, she awoke to what she
had done. The guilt, whose aspect had been shunned in the prospective,
assumed at once its true frightful color, the blackness of darkness;
and a lively remorse, a never-dying anguish, took possession of her soul
forever. Oh, reader, believe me! Lady--wife--mother! Should you ever be
tempted to abandon your home, so will you awake. Whatever trials may be
the lot of your married life, though they may magnify themselves to your
crushed spirit as beyond the nature, the endurance of woman to bear,
_resolve_ to bear them; fall down upon your knees, and pray to be
enabled to bear them--pray for patience--pray for strength to resist
the demon that would tempt you to escape; bear unto d