d as the knell of blighted
joys--of hopes gone by--as the memory of a mysterious shame,
and of a nameless sorrow.

My eyes turned accidentally to a painting of the Cathedral
at --, which hung over the chimney-piece in my room. A
superstitious and nervous fancy took possession of me. I felt
as if my fate directed me there. I turned my eyes away, and
tried to _think_, but could not. A vague terror pursued me;
and still, as I fixed my eyes on this picture, I felt as if
_there_, among those solemn arches, in those dim aisles, I
should be _safe_. I felt as if a mountain would be removed
from my breast as soon as I had reached a place where my name
and my fate were unknown. _There_, Henry would not pursue me;
_there_, I should never be told that Alice was dead, and that
I had destroyed her; _there_, I should never hear that Mrs.
Middleton had learnt to hate me; there, she would never ask me
what I had done with her child; and miles and miles would lie
between me and _him_, whom I so hopelessly loved, and so
wildly feared.

The hours went by, and each time the clock struck I startled
with affright; but I grew calmer as the night advanced; I had
something to do, for my strange vague fancy was changed into a
settled resolve.

I fetched a small portmanteau, and put into it some linen and
some money, Edward's miniature, and a small prayer-book, which
he had once given to me. My cough was dreadful, and shook me
to pieces; but I listened to its hollow sound with a terrible
joy; and as I counted the bank-notes in my pocket-book, I
wrote with a pencil on the back of the last--"For my burial."

The clock struck five, and I put on my bonnet and my cloak.
The light was faintly dawning. I opened with a trembling hand
the door of the adjoining room, and unclosed the shutters, to
look once and for the last time on Edward's full-length
picture. The light was so faint, and my swelled and burning
eyes were so dim, that I could hardly discern its features,
and I saw nothing before me but the vision of that dreadful
moment when I last beheld him, I knelt before it, and breathed
a prayer for _him_, which will be heard at the throne of
Grace, if prayers can avail from the lips of those who cannot,
and dare not, pray for themselves.

A noise in the room above my head startled and hurried me. I
took up the portmanteau in my room, and carried it with
difficulty down the stairs; I reached the hall door, and
pushed it open--I closed it behin