convent, and he would never see her again. I must add that Mr. Carden
received him as roughly as he had Little, but the interview terminated
differently. Coventry, with his winning tongue, and penitence and
plausibility, softened the indignant father, and then, appealing to his
good sense, extorted from him the admission that his daughter's only
chance of happiness lay in forgiving him, and allowing him to atone his
faults by a long life of humble devotion. But when Coventry, presuming
on this, implored him to reveal where she was, the old man stood stanch,
and said that was told him under a solemn assurance of secrecy, and
nothing should induce him to deceive his daughter. "I will not lose her
love and confidence for any of you," said he.

So now Coventry put that word "convent" and this word "nun" together,
and came to Hillsborough full of suspicions.

He took lodgings nearly opposite Little's house, and watched in a dark
room so persistently, that, at last, he saw the nun appear, saw her
stealthy, cat-like approaches, her affected retreat, her cunning
advance, her long lingering look.

A close observer of women, he saw in every movement of her supple body
that she was animated by love.

He raged and sickened with jealousy, and when, at last, she retired, he
followed her, with hell in his heart, and never lost sight of her till
she entered her house in the valley.

If there had been a house to let in the terrace, he would certainly have
taken it; but Little had anticipated him.

He took a very humble lodging in the neighborhood; and by dint of
watching, he at last saw the nun speaking to a poor woman with her veil
up. It revealed to him nothing but what he knew already. It was the
woman he loved, and she hated him; the woman who had married him under
a delusion, and stabbed him on his bridal day. He loved her all the more
passionately for that.

Until he received Lally's note, he had been content to wait patiently
until his rival should lose hope, and carry himself and his affections
elsewhere; he felt sure that must be the end of it.

But now jealousy stung him, wild passion became too strong for reason,
and he resolved to play a bold and lawless game to possess his lawful
wife. Should it fail, what could they do to him? A man may take his own
by force. Not only his passions, but the circumstances tempted him. She
was actually living alone, in a thinly-peopled district, and close to a
road. It was only to co