d a plan for escape; she
disappeared from the house with her child. Taking refuge in a cottage,
living on the sale of the few jewels she possessed, she was for some
weeks almost happy. But Braddell, less grieved by the loss than shocked
by the scandal, was indefatigable in his researches,--he discovered her
retreat. The scene between them was terrible. There was no resisting the
power which all civilized laws give to the rights of husband and father.
Before this man, whom she scorned so unutterably, Lucretia was impotent.
Then all the boiling passions long suppressed beneath that command of
temper which she owed both to habitual simulation and intense disdain,
rushed forth. Then she appalled the impostor with her indignant
denunciations of his hypocrisy, his meanness, and his guile. Then,
throwing off the mask she had worn, she hurled her anathema on his sect,
on his faith, with the same breath that smote his conscience and left it
wordless. She shocked all the notions he sincerely entertained, and he
stood awed by accusations from a blasphemer whom he dared not rebuke.
His rage broke at length from his awe. Stung, maddened by the scorn of
himself, his blood fired into juster indignation by her scoff at his
creed, he lost all self-possession and struck her to the ground. In the
midst of shame and dread at disclosure of his violence, which succeeded
the act so provoked, he was not less relieved than amazed when Lucretia,
rising slowly, laid her hand gently on his arm and said, "Repent not, it
is passed; fear not, I will be silent! Come, you are the stronger,--you
prevail. I will follow my child to your home."

In this unexpected submission in one so imperious, Braddell's imperfect
comprehension of character saw but fear, and his stupidity exulted in
his triumph. Lucretia returned with him. A few days afterwards Braddell
became ill; the illness increased,--slow, gradual, wearying. It broke
his spirit with his health; and then the steadfast imperiousness of
Lucretia's stern will ruled and subjugated him. He cowered beneath her
haughty, searching gaze, he shivered at her sidelong, malignant glance;
but with this fear came necessarily hate, and this hate, sometimes
sufficing to vanquish the fear, spitefully evinced itself in thwarting
her legitimate control over her infant. He would have it (though he
had little real love for children) constantly with him, and affected to
contradict all her own orders to the servants, in the