and had left
the others in God's hands, and had prayed earnestly for them,
as he foresaw the dark and troubled scenes on which they were
entering. But now, as he travelled from Elmsley to Hillscombe,
he felt quite uncertain as to the character, and the state of
mind, of the man whom he was seeking. Ellen's journal had
given him a clear idea of every individual connected with her
history save of that husband whom she had so loved, so feared,
and so offended. Whether a strong principle of duty, or an
implacable strength of resentment characterised him, he could
not exactly discern; and he felt the difficulty of obtruding
himself, a perfect stranger, into those sorrows which dignity,
or pride, wounded affection, or stern implacability, had
shrouded from every eye, and buried in that solitude which he
was now on the point of disturbing.

With intense anxiety and curiosity he opened the letter which
Henry Lovell had placed in his hands; and, according to his
permission, proceeded to read it.

"This letter will be placed in your hands by a clergyman, who
will at the same time inform you that I am dying, and that, as
a dying man, I solemnly address you, and charge you to read
the whole of this letter. Your wife is not dead; and on my
death-bed I desire to do her that justice which I withheld
from her so long, while she vainly sought for it at my hands.
I have loved her passionately and for years; and if she had
returned my affection, she would not be dying now of a broken
heart, and I should not be on the brink of madness. Do not
imagine that I am mad _now_. I am in the full possession of my
senses; and if I could, or dared, thank God for anything, it
would be for this interval of reason, which allows me to
declare, with all the force of a death-bed assertion, that the
woman, whom you have turned out of your house as my mistress,
is as pure as she was on the fatal day when we both first saw
her; and loves you with a passion which has made the misery of
my life, which has baffled every effort I made to destroy her
virtue, and which she dies of at last, blessing you, and
hating me as a woman; but, perhaps, forgiving me as a
Christian. Not quite three years ago, a dreadful accident, an
extraordinary train of circumstances, threw her into my power.
I saw her in a fit of almost childish passion strike her
cousin Julia; the child was standing in a dangerous position,
her foot slipped, and she fell down the cliff; you know t