on its soft covering
must discover its secrets. Are they treasures, Leslie?"

Oh, blind, absent, reckless man, what treasure-keeper kept such ward!

Lightly won, was lightly held.

Leslie struggled with her oppression for several dull feverish days;
then, driven by her own goading thoughts, her sense of injury, her
thirst for justice and revenge, she left the house and wandered out on
the beach to breathe free air, to forget herself in exertion, fatigue,
stupor. It was evening, dark with vapour--gloomy, with a rising gale,
and the sea was beginning to mutter and growl. Leslie sat shivering by
the water's edge, fascinated by the sympathy of nature with her bitter
hopelessness. A voice on the banks and meadows, even in the chill night
air, whispered of spring advancing rapidly, with buds and flowers, with
sap, fragrance, and warmth, and the tender grace of its flood of green;
but here, by the waves, a passing thunder-cloud, a stealthy mist, a
whistling breeze, darkened the scene, and restored barren, dismal winter
in a single hour. The night drooped down without moon or star, and still
Leslie sat listless, drowsy with sorrow, until as she rose she sank back
sick and giddy; and then the idea of premature death, of passing away
without a sign, of hiding her pain under the silent earth that has
covered so many sins and sorrows, first laid hold of her.

The notion was not fairly welcome: she was young; her heart had been
recently wrung; she had been listless and disappointed--but she had
loved her few isolated engagements, her country life, her household
dignity, the protection of her husband. She could not divest herself
of these feelings at once. She feared the great unknown into which
she should enter; but still death did not appal her as it might have
done: it was something to be scanned, waited for, and submitted to,
as a true sovereign.

The cold wind pierced her through and through; the rain fell; she could
not drag herself from the shelving rock, though the tide was rising. She
felt frozen, her limbs were like lead, and her mind was wandering, or
lapsing into unconsciousness.

She did not hear a call, an approaching foot; but her sinking pulses
leapt up with sudden power and passion when Hector Garret stooped over
her, and endeavoured to raise her.

"Here, Bridget, she is found! Leslie, why have you remained out so late?
You have been sleeping; you have made yourself ill. How can you be so
rash, so imprudent?