child. For this, however, I must wait
until, under cover of the next night's darkness, I could enter the house
unperceived.

"So I wandered about all day in torment, without having food or rest,
the thought of my poor, darling, tortured Emily ever present to my
wretched thoughts. The hours seemed interminable. I remember that day of
suspense as if it had been a whole year of misery. But night came at
last, cloudy, and the air thickened with a heavy fog which, as I
approached the street where Mr. Graham lived, concealed the house until
I was opposite to it. I shuddered at the sight of the physician's
chaise standing before the door; for I knew that Dr. Jeremy had closed
his visits to Emily more than a week previously, and must have been
summoned to attend her since the accident. Thinking it probable that Mr.
Graham was in the house, I forbore to enter, but stood concealed by the
mist, and watching my opportunity.

"Once or twice Mrs. Ellis, the housekeeper, passed up and down the
staircase, as I could distinctly see through the sidelights of the door,
and Dr. Jeremy descended, followed by Mr. Graham. The doctor would have
passed hastily out, but Mr. Graham detained him, to question him
regarding his patient, as I judged from the anxiety depicted on my
step-father's countenance. The doctor's back was towards me, and I could
only judge of his replies by the effect they produced on the questioner,
whose haggard appearance became more distressed at every syllable that
fell from the honest and truthful lips of the medical man, whose words
were oracles to all who knew his skill.

"I needed, therefore, no further testimony to force the conviction that
Emily's fate was sealed; and as I looked with pity upon the afflicted
parent, and shudderingly thought of my agency in the work of
destruction, I felt that the unhappy father could not curse me more
bitterly than I cursed myself. Deeply, however, as I mourned, and have
never ceased to repent, my share in the exciting of that storm wherein
the poor girl had been so cruelly shipwrecked, I could not forget the
part that Mr. Graham had borne in the transaction, or forgive the wicked
injustice and insults which had so unmanned me as to render my hand a
fit instrument only of ruin; and as, after the doctor's departure, I
watched my step-father walk away, and saw by a street-lamp that the look
of pain had passed from his face, giving place to his usual composed and
arrogant expressio