s
picture and on that, and something whispered to my soul, "Who
has done this?" and conscience answered, "_Thou_, even
_thou_." I heard my uncle's impatient step below, and I said,
"Alice, will you come?" She rose from her knees, and there was
in her face that peace which passeth all understanding. She
looked into mine and, doubtless, saw in it the storms which
swept over my soul, for her meek eyes looked kindly upon me.
She drew from her bosom a small wooden cross, which hung by a
black ribbon round her neck; she held it to her lips and then
to mine, and said, "Borne for us, and by us."

Dinner was half over that day before Henry came in; his face
was flushed, and his brow clouded. He answered roughly and
abruptly his sister's questions as to the cause of his
lateness; drank a great deal of wine, and maintained a gloomy
and sullen silence. Partly from a kind of utter
discouragement, partly from the fear of giving pain to Alice,
instead of eagerly watching for an opportunity of speaking to
him after dinner, and learning the result of his interview
with Harding, I avoided Henry, and even left the drawing-room;
and going up to my own turret sitting-room, I raked up the
embers of the fire, and sat before it in gloomy contemplation.
At the end of about half an hour, Henry burst into the room,
and, as I looked at him in astonishment, he exclaimed
bitterly, "Pray be so good as to dispense with forms for once,
and receive me graciously if you can, for my patience is
exhausted, and I would recommend you not to trifle with me. Do
you imagine," he continued, with increasing violence, "that I
am to submit to the most painful and humiliating interviews,
and at my return to be treated as a footman whom you have sent
on an errand? If you hate me, conceal it at least. Act the
hypocrite once more, and to good purpose, for I am weary of
the part you play, and make me play."

"Leave me, leave me this moment; and O that I might never set
eyes on you again."

"So you said once before; and did I not tell you then, that
all was not over between us? Are you not bound to me by a tie
so powerful that nothing can sever it? Has not your heart
softened to me in spite of all I have ever done or said to
make you hate me? And is it not because you know, you feel,
that, whatever I may do and say in ungovernable anger, I love
you ardently, passionately, unspeakably--"

"For God's sake, for mercy's sake, go! that is Edward's voice
in the hall-