es are knitted to each other!
Here was one who had taken Hope's whole existence in her hands, crushed
it, and thrown it away. Hope had soberly said to herself, just before,
that death would be better than life for her young sister. Yet now it
moved her beyond endurance to see that fair form troubled, even while
unconscious, by a feather's weight of pain; and all the lifelong habit
of tenderness resumed in a moment its sway.

She approached her fingers to the offending tress, very slowly, half
withholding them at the very last, as if the touch would burn her. She
was almost surprised that it did not. She looked to see if it did not
hurt Emilia. But it now seemed as if the slumbering girl enjoyed the
caressing contact of the smooth fingers, and turned her head, almost
imperceptibly, to meet them. This was more than Hope could bear. It was
as if that slight motion were a puncture to relieve her overburdened
heart; a thousand thoughts swept over her,--of their father, of her
sister's childhood, of her years of absent expectation; she thought how
young the girl was, how fascinating, how passionate, how tempted; all
this swept across her in a great wave of nervous reaction, and when
Emilia returned to consciousness, she was lying in her sister's arms,
her face bathed in Hope's tears.

XIX. DE PROFUNDIS.

THIS was the history of Emilia's concealed visits to Malbone.

One week after her marriage, in a crisis of agony, Emilia took up her
pen, dipped it in fire, and wrote thus to him:--

"Philip Malbone, why did nobody ever tell me what marriage is where
there is no love? This man who calls himself my husband is no worse,
I suppose, than other men. It is only for being what is called by that
name that I abhor him. Good God! what am I to do? It was not for money
that I married him,--that you know very well; I cared no more for his
money than for himself. I thought it was the only way to save Hope. She
has been very good to me, and perhaps I should love her, if I could love
anybody. Now I have done what will only make more misery, for I cannot
bear it. Philip, I am alone in this wide world, except for you. Tell me
what to do. I will haunt you till you die, unless you tell me. Answer
this, or I will write again."

Terrified by this letter, absolutely powerless to guide the life with
which he had so desperately entangled himself, Philip let one day pass
without answering, and that evening he found Emilia at his door, she