a strange mixture of vengeance and
conscientiousness, she is really tormented by the belief that
she is committing a heinous sin in keeping the truth from him;
and the only way which I could find of calming her scruples,
was by informing her of the conditions under which I happen to
know that your uncle has settled his property, and by solemnly
assuring her that you will never submit to them."

"Thank you," I answered coldly, and got up to go. Everything
in that moment seemed turned to stone. I owed Henry an immense
debt of gratitude according to this account, but not an atom
of it could I show or feel. On the contrary, ail the evil in
my nature was stirred up, and I felt more than I had ever done
before, as if I hated him. Perhaps it was that he had proved
to me what I had hitherto never in reality believed, though I
had often said it to myself, and that was, that a barrier
indeed existed between me and Edward, which no effort of mine
could remove.

"Do not go yet," he said; "there is more that I must say to
you. You have a right to ask me--"

"I have nothing to ask you," I hastily replied; "from the
fatal hour when, by an unpremeditated act, I put the seal to
the misery of my whole life; when by the most unfortunate
union of circumstances, you and your tyrant became the
witnesses of that act, I have lost the power of free agency--I
have lost the power, the right to resent, what every woman
should and does resent."

"Ellen!" exclaimed Henry, "your coldness, your calmness, make
me more miserable than your violence did just now. Do not you
_now_ understand, why with tears, with threats, with
supplications, with the energy of despair, I implored you to
become my wife--and in secret? I thought you loved me; had I
not a right to believe it, too? Had not your words and your
actions given me that right? Once married to you, your
fortune--(I could not say this to many women, but to you I
can)--your fortune transferred to Alice freed me at least from
that part of my engagement to her; and, as your husband, would
I not have toiled day and night to supply its place? Would we
not have both scorned all that calumniators, or enemies, could
do against us? If in her anger Tracy had spoken out--which was
not likely, when she saw nothing to be gained by it--would I
not have carried you away from all that could have marred your
peace? Would I not have cherished you, and worshipped you
through life, and to the hour of death, and