g her hands, she again commenced
her walk.

"A lie," she muttered, "a splendid, living lie. Widows and orphans
wronged--the poor defrauded--the church wounded and robbed by thee,
Helen! A husband who trusts me--who believes me--honorable and true
himself--confiding in a nature _utterly_ false--and leaning on a heart
rotten to the core! Oh, Helen! eternal loss will surely be thine--so
it is better to _die_ ere madness comes, and divulges the dark secret.
Walter is away; he will be here at sunrise. Better for him to find
thee, Helen, calm and cold in the beauty of which he is so proud, than
live to know that thou art _all a lie_--which he would tear away from
his honest heart, and throw to the very dogs!"

While these dark thoughts swept through the heart of the tempted and
despairing one, she unlocked a secret drawer in her jewel-case, and
took from it a small silver casket, which she opened. It contained a
crystal _flacon_, filled with a liquid, transparent, and of a pale
rose-color. "One drop of it," she whispered, "one single drop, and
without a pang, this unrest and anguish will be over. That which is
_beyond_ cannot be worse!" Just then a strong current of air rushed in
through the open window, and blew the jet of gas, in a stream of
brilliance, up towards the picture of the _Mater Dolorosa_. The sudden
glare arrested the attention of the wretched, sin-stained one. She
looked up, and her eyes, glaring with the frenzy of evil, met the
ineffably tender and sorrowful face of MARY; which, with its tears, and
expression of submissive and sublime woe, its folded hands, its meek
brow, seemed bowed towards her. She paused, while, with the
distinctness of a whisper, these thoughts passed through her soul.
"Wretched one, forbear! Wound not again my Divine Son, whose body is
already covered with stripes and bruises for thee. Open not my heart
again, which is already pierced for thy salvation! Hope! It was for
such as thee that my Son, Jesus, suffered on the cross; for such as
thee, that I immolated my soul, my nature, my maternal love, on that
bloody altar with Him."

"Was it the wind? No! the sweetest winds of earth could not have drawn
such language from the corrupt and frenzied chords of my spirit. No
demon whispered it!" exclaimed Helen, still gazing upwards. "Was it a
heavenly warning _for me_, the most miserable outcast on the wide
earth?" The mad tempest was dispersed; it rolled back its sullen
cl