without love and a contented
heart? Come, dearest, once more to your own one, who will
never remember aught of the sad rupture which enemies have
made, and we will hurry to the setting sun, and recline on
mossy banks, and give up our souls to Elysium.

As Lizzie read this she uttered an exclamation of disgust. Did the
man after all know so little of her as to suppose that she, with all
her experiences, did not know how to keep her own life and her own
pocket separate from her romance? She despised him for this, almost
as much as she respected him for the murder.

If you will only say that you will see me, I will be at
your feet in a moment. Till the solemnity with which the
late tragical event must have filled you shall have left
you leisure to think of all this, I will not force myself
into your presence, or seek to secure by law rights which
will be much dearer to me if they are accorded by your own
sweet goodwill. And in the meantime, I will agree that
the income shall be drawn, provided that it be equally
divided between us. I have been sorely straitened in
my circumstances by these last events. My congregation
is of course dispersed. Though my innocence has been
triumphantly displayed, my name has been tarnished. It is
with difficulty that I find a spot where to lay my weary
head. I am ahungered and athirst;--and my very garments
are parting from me in my need. Can it be that you
willingly doom me to such misery because of my love for
you? Had I been less true to you, it might have been
otherwise.

Let me have an answer at once, and I will instantly take
steps about the money if you will agree.

Your truly most loving husband,

JOSEPH EMILIUS.

To Lady Eustace, wife of the Rev. Joseph Emilius.

When Lizzie had read the letter twice through she resolved that she
would show it to her friend. "I know it will reopen the floodgates of
your grief," she said; "but unless you see it, how can I ask from you
the advice which is so necessary to me?" But Mrs. Bonteen was a woman
sincere at any rate in this,--that the loss of her husband had been
to her so crushing a calamity that there could be no reopening of the
floodgates. The grief that cannot bear allusion to its causes has
generally something of affectation in its composition. The floodgates
with this widowed one had never yet been for a moment closed. It was
not that her t