person shaking
me rudely by the shoulder; a small lamp burned in my room, and by its
light, to my horror and amazement, I discovered that my visitant was
the self-same blind, old lady who had so terrified me a few weeks
before. I started up in the bed, with a view to ring the bell, and
alarm the domestics, but she instantly anticipated me by saying, "Do
not be frightened, silly girl; if I had wished to harm you I could
have done it while you were sleeping, I need not have wakened you;
listen to me, now, attentively and fearlessly; for what I have to say,
interests you to the full as much as it does me; tell me, here, in
the presence of God, did Lord Glenfallen marry you, _actually marry_
you?--speak the truth, woman."

"As surely as I live and speak," I replied, "did Lord Glenfallen marry
me in presence of more than a hundred witnesses."

"Well," continued she, "he should have told you _then_, before you
married him, that he had a wife living, which wife I am; I feel you
tremble--tush! do not be frightened. I do not mean to harm you--mark
me now--you are not his wife. When I make my story known you will be
so, neither in the eye of God nor of man; you must leave this house
upon to-morrow; let the world know that your husband has another wife
living; go, you, into retirement, and leave him to justice, which will
surely overtake him. If you remain in this house after to-morrow you
will reap the bitter fruits of your sin," so saying, she quitted the
room, leaving me very little disposed to sleep.

Here was food for my very worst and most terrible suspicions; still
there was not enough to remove all doubt. I had no proof of the truth
of this woman's statement. Taken by itself there was nothing to induce
me to attach weight to it; but when I viewed it in connection with the
extraordinary mystery of some of Lord Glenfallen's proceedings, his
strange anxiety to exclude me from certain portions of the mansion,
doubtless, lest I should encounter this person--the strong influence,
nay, command, which she possessed over him, a circumstance clearly
established by the very fact of her residing in the very place, where
of all others, he should least have desired to find her--her thus
acting, and continuing to act in direct contradiction to his wishes;
when, I say, I viewed her disclosure in connection with all these
circumstances, I could not help feeling that there was at least a
fearful verisimilitude in the allegations which sh