Julia's death the work of my hand?
And had not Henry said that her death had been an advantage to
me? He had; and then he spoke of bringing me down upon my
knees before him to implore his pity; he poisoned his weapon,
and then dealt the blow. _His_ pity! Oh, as I thought of that,
I longed to see him but for one moment again, if only to tell
him that I spurned his pity, despised his forbearance, and
that, taught by himself, I had learned one lesson at least,
which I should never forget, and that was to be revenged! And
in the struggle he had begun. I felt myself the strongest, for
I did not love him; in that last scene the truth had been
revealed to myself as well as to him. The slight links which
bound me to him, had in a moment snapt; but _he_ loved me,
with a fierce and selfish love indeed, but still he loved me;
and if there is torment in unrequited love; if there is agony
in reading the cold language of indifference in the eyes on
which you gaze away the happiness of your life, that torment,
that agony, should be his. These thoughts were dreadful; I
shudder as I write them; but my feelings were excited, and my
pride galled nearly to madness. I remember that I clenched
with such violence a smelling-bottle, that it broke to pieces
in my hand, and the current of my thoughts was suddenly turned
to Mrs. Swift's exclamation of "La, Miss! You've broken your
bottle, and spilt the Eau de Cologne! What could you have been
thinking of?"

What had I been thinking of? Oh that world of thought within
us! That turmoil of restless activity which boils beneath the
calm surface of our every day's life! We sit and we talk; we
walk and we drive; we lie down to sleep, and we rise up again
the next day; as if life offered nothing to rouse the inmost
passions of the soul; as if hopes tremblingly cherished were
not often dashed to the earth; as if fears we scarcely dare to
define were not hovering near our hearts, and resolutions were
not formed in silence and abandoned in despair; as if the
spirit of darkness was not prompting the soul to deeds of
evil, and the hand of God was not stretched out between us and
the yawning gulf of destruction. And others look on; and, like
Mrs. Swift, wonder what we can be thinking of. God help them!
or rather may He help us, for we need it most.

At the end of the second day we reached the well-known gates
of Elmsley, and in a few moments more I was locked in my
aunt's embrace. I wept bitterly as I