s the cold air fanned
my cheek, I felt that I might be happy still. Again I seized
his letter, and as I opened it, my eyes fell on the passage
where he said, "If you are not perjured, if you have not
called upon Almighty God to witness a lie." It froze in its
current the source of hope, which for an instant had sprung up
in my breast, for it reminded me of the oath by which I had
bound myself never to reveal the truth to Edward. It was as if
a hand of ice had chilled the warm blood that had begun to
circulate freely about my heart. I set my teeth together, and
muttered to myself that I would break that fatal oath; but
even while I said it, I felt I dared not do it. I needed all
my strength, all my courage; I needed God's help, and God's
mercy, even now to confess to Edward the dreadful secret of my
life, the horrible trials, the bitter humiliations I had gone
through; and in the face of a broken oath, with the guilt of
perjury on my soul, how could I hope for mercy or for peace? I
struggled with my conscience; I bade it be silent; but in
vain. This new form of crime staggered and confounded me; I
dared not add fuel to the flame, or a new kind of remorse to
the dark visions that already haunted my days, and visited my
dreams. I gazed upon those blotted scraps of paper before me,
the records of weakness and misery, but not of guilt; and the
veins of my temple swelled, and my hands were clenched with
powerless rage as I thought of the part which Henry had
throughout acted by me, and of which this was the close. He
had either betrayed me himself; or by a cruel carelessness, a
heartless negligence, he had failed to destroy the proofs of
our fatal intimacy, and had left them in the power of my
_relentless_ enemy.

A servant came in, and putting down a letter on the table, he
said, "Mr. Lovell has been very often to inquire after you,
Ma'am, and he begs to know if he can see you now; or if he
shall call again this afternoon."

I would have given worlds to have admitted Henry, to have
poured forth in words the burning anger of my soul, or
implored a release from my fatal oath; but Edward's command
was before my eyes; his letter was in my hand; and I said, in
as calm a voice as I could command, "Tell Mr. Lovell that I am
engaged now, and that I shall not be at home this afternoon."
I glanced at the letter on the table, and saw that it was not
from Henry, but from Mrs. Moore, who, with a thousand regrets
and apologies for