I should at present shrink from seeing Susan
Mivers. Hereafter, if permitted, I will visit Mrs. Mainwaring."

Though all had chanced as Mr. Fielden had desired (if, as he once half
meditated, he had spoken to Lucretia herself); though a marriage that
could have brought happiness to none, and would have made the misery of
two, was at an end,--he yet felt a bitter pang, almost of remorse, when
he learned what had occurred. And Lucretia, before secretly disliked
(if any one he could dislike), became dear to him at once, by sorrow
and compassion. Forgetting every other person, he hurried to the hotel
Lucretia had chosen; but her coldness deceived and her pride repelled
him. She listened dryly to all he said, and merely replied: "I feel only
gratitude at my escape. Let this subject now close forever."

Mr. Fielden left her presence with less anxious and commiserating
feelings,--perhaps all had chanced for the best. And on returning home,
his whole mind became absorbed in alarm for Susan. She was delirious,
and in great danger; it was many weeks before she recovered. Meanwhile,
Lucretia had removed into private apartments, of which she withheld the
address. During this time, therefore, they lost sight of her.

If amidst the punishments with which the sombre imagination of poets has
diversified the Realm of the tortured Shadows, it had depicted some soul
condemned to look evermore down into an abyss, all change to its gaze
forbidden, chasm upon chasm yawning deeper and deeper, darker and
darker, endless and infinite, so that, eternally gazing, the soul
became, as it were, a part of the abyss,--such an image would symbol
forth the state of Lucretia's mind.

It was not the mere desolation of one whom love has abandoned and
betrayed. In the abyss were mingled inextricably together the gloom of
the past and of the future,--there, the broken fortunes, the crushed
ambition, the ruin of the worldly expectations long inseparable from her
schemes; and amidst them, the angry shade of the more than father, whose
heart she had wrung, and whose old age she had speeded to the grave.
These sacrifices to love, while love was left to her, might have haunted
her at moments; but a smile, a word, a glance, banished the regret and
the remorse. Now, love being razed out of life, the ruins of all else
loomed dismal amidst the darkness; and a voice rose up, whispering: "Lo,
fool, what thou hast lost because thou didst believe and love!" And this