ing and intense; that sense of sacrilege with
which we fill up the haunted recesses of the spirit with a new and a
living idol and perpetrate the last act of infidelity to that buried
love, which the heavens that now receive her, the earth where we beheld
her, tell us, with, the unnumbered voices of Nature, to worship with the
incense of our faith.

His carriage stopped at the lodge. The woman who opened the gates gave
him the following note:

"Mr. Mandeville is returned; I almost fear that he suspects our
attachment. Julia says, that if you come again to E------, she will
inform him. I dare not, dearest Falkland, see you here. What is to be
done? I am very ill and feverish: my brain burns so, that I can
think, feel, remember nothing, but the one thought, feeling, and
remembrance--that through shame, and despite of guilt, in life, and till
death, I am yours. E. M."

As Falkland read this note, his extreme and engrossing love for Emily
doubled with each word: an instant before, and the certainty of seeing
her had suffered his mind to be divided into a thousand objects; now,
doubt united them once more into one.

He altered his route to L------, and despatched from thence a short note
to Emily, imploring her to meet him that evening by the lake, in order
to arrange their ultimate flight. Her answer was brief, and blotted with
her tears; but it was assent.

During the whole of that day, at least from the moment she received
Falkland's letter, Emily was scarcely sensible of a single idea: she sat
still and motionless, gazing on vacancy, and seeing nothing within her
mind, or in the objects which surrounded her, but one dreary blank.
Sense, thought, feeling, even remorse, were congealed and frozen; and
the tides of emotion were still, bid they were ice!

As Falkland's servant had waited without to deliver the note to Emily,
Mrs. St. John had observed him: her alarm and surprise only served
to quicken her presence of mind. She intercepted Emily's answer under
pretence of giving it herself to Falkland's servant. She read it, and
her resolution was formed. After carefully resealing and delivering it
to the servant, she went at once to Mr. Mandeville, and revealed Lady
Emily's attachment to Falkland. In this act of treachery, she was solely
instigated by her passions; and when Mandeville, roused from his wonted
apathy to a paroxysm of indignation, thanked her again and again for
the generosity of friendship which he imagi