as a just
expiation for a course of sin and deceit; and to trust that,
in a life spent by his side, in compliance with his will, in
submission to his dictates, in absolute devotion, and
unremitting tenderness, which my lips would never express, but
which my conduct would reveal, I should at last have my
reward--his belief in that love which could bear, believe,
endure, and hope all things.

Tossed by these conflicting thoughts, jaded by this incessant
and racking anxiety, at last I sent a few lines which I had
copied out several times--for sometimes a word had seemed to
me too cold, or too abrupt, too like, or too unlike those
which were struggling to escape from my heart and from my pen,
or else my tears had stained the paper.

In conclusion, I said, "If, on his dying bed, my uncle names
me, do not ask him to say 'God bless her!' but 'God forgive
her.'"

I also wrote to Mrs. Middleton, and when these two letters
were gone, I felt relieved.

The state in which I lived during the next few days was
strange. In the midst of London I was in perfect solitude.
Rather than forbid the servants to let Henry in, I gave a
general order to deny me to every one, without exception.

Early in the morning, I drove into the country for some hours,
and the rest of the day I spent in my back drawing-room buried
in thought, and alternately giving way to the gloomiest
anticipations, or the most vague and groundless visions of
future happiness.

Every day I sent a servant to inquire after Alice; and the
report of her continued to be favourable.

On the third day after Edward's departure, and after Henry had
made several fruitless attempts to see me, a letter was
brought to me, and I immediately felt it was from him. My
first impulse was to seize a cover and enclose it back to him,
without a word of explanation; but, on cooler reflection, I
determined to write to him.

Edward had not forbidden me to do so; and to explain my
present conduct, was the only chance of keeping up that power
over him, on which so much depended. I therefore wrote as
fellows:--

"The crisis of my fate is come. Henceforward, if I take one
more step in the downward course in which I have been so
cruelly entangled, I am lost for ever. If you feel any of that
regard for me which you have so long professed, I need not
make any comments upon the fact which I now disclose to you.

"The notes which at different times I have sent you, and which
so fatally