d not seek even a momentary shelter from my tempestuous
affliction in that temper of mind. The man who could accuse my Agnes, and
accuse her of such a crime, I felt to be a monster; and in my thoughts he
was already doomed to a bloody atonement (atonement! alas! what atonement!)
whenever the time arrived that _her_ cause would not be prejudiced, or the
current of public feeling made to turn in his favour by investing him with
the semblance of an injured or suffering person. So much was settled in my
thoughts with the stern serenity of a decree issuing from a judgment-seat.
But that gave no relief, no shadow of relief, to the misery which was now
consuming me. Here was an end, in one hour, to the happiness of a life. In
one hour it had given way, root and branch--had melted like so much
frost-work, or a pageant of vapoury exhalations. In a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye, and yet for ever and ever, I comprehended the total
ruin of my situation. The case, as others might think, was yet in suspense;
and there was room enough for very rational hopes, especially where there
was an absolute certainty of innocence. Total freedom from all doubt on that
point seemed to justify almost more than hopes. This might be said, and most
people would have been more or less consoled by it. I was not. I felt as
certain, as irredeemably, as hopelessly certain of the final results as
though I had seen the record in the books of heaven. 'Hope nothing,' I said
to myself; 'think not of hope in this world, but think only how best to walk
steadily, and not to reel like a creature wanting discourse of reason, or
incapable of religious hopes under the burden which it has pleased God to
impose, and which in this life cannot be shaken off. The countenance of man
is made to look upward and to the skies. Thither also point henceforwards
your heart and your thoughts. Never again let your thoughts travel
earthwards. Settle them on the heavens, to which your Agnes is already
summoned. The call is clear, and not to be mistaken. Little in _her_ fate
now depends upon you, or upon anything that man can do. Look, therefore, to
yourself; see that you make not shipwreck of your heavenly freight because
your earthly freight is lost; and miss not, by any acts of wild and
presumptuous despair, that final reunion with your Agnes, which can only be
descried through vistas that open through the heavens.'

Such were the thoughts, thoughts often made audible, which came