was sitting at her work opposite to
him, she heard him say, in a low voice, "_Notre Dame de bon
secours_." She looked up with tears in her eyes; he rose
wildly, and cried, "Your tears shall not avail you;" and then
he turned away, and did not speak for some hours.

One morning that the sun was shining brightly, and the mild
air forestalled the spring, Alice had thrown open a window
that looked upon the flower-garden. A bird was chirping a few
shrill notes near it; and Henry listened to them with an
appearance of pleasure. When the bird flew away, he went to
the window, and gazed earnestly on some early spring flowers,
which were just coming into blossom. Alice opened a book on
the table, and read aloud the following lines:--

"Sweet nurslings of the vernal skies.
Bathed in soft airs and fed with dew,
What more of magic in you lies
To fill the hearths fond view?
In childhood's sports, companions gay
In sorrow, on life's downward way,
How soothing! In our last decay.
Memorials prompt and true."

Henry held out his hand for the book, and read over these
lines in silence; he then glanced at the title-page,
shuddered, and flung it from him. Alice picked it up, and
looked anxiously at him.

"Was not Dr. Dodd hung for forgery?" he exclaimed. She turned
very pale. He saw it; and said, "You need not be frightened
now. I am not _mad_. In that very book I _forged_ the first
link of that infernal chain with which I bound and destroyed
her."

Alice knelt by him, and whispered--

"Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as
snow."

He drew fiercely back, and cried--

"There may be mercy for others; there can be none for me. Look
into your Bible, you will see in it what I have done. Turned
her body and her soul into hell! God alone should do _that_.
_I_ have done it. Alice, if you believe, you must tremble. Ay,
the devils do so too. Poor angel! God has turned thee into an
earthly hell. Pure spirit! chained to a fiend, thy fiery trial
draws to an end."

He sank back into his chair, and muttered--

"The worm that never dies. Ay, I understand it now."

One day that Alice had been walking before breakfast, and was
returning home with that heaviness of step, and abstraction
from outward things, which prolonged and acute mental
suffering produces, the porter's wife stopped her as she
passed the lodge, to tell her that half an hour before a
gentleman had come to the gate in a pos