was the reformed and repenting creature whom _you_ might have
approved. I had only one feeling in me that I know of. I wanted to
put my arms round Norah's neck, and cry my heart out on Norah's bosom.
Childish enough, I dare say. Something might have come of it; nothing
might have come of it--who knows?

"I had no means of finding Norah without your assistance. However you
might disapprove of what I had done, I thought you would not refuse to
help me to find my sister. When I lay down last night in my strange bed,
I said to myself, 'I will ask Miss Garth, for my father's sake and my
mother's sake, to tell me.' You don't know what a comfort I felt in that
thought. How should you? What do good women like you know of miserable
sinners like me? All you know is that you pray for us at church.

"Well, I fell asleep happily that night--for the first time since my
marriage. When the morning came, I paid the penalty of daring to be
happy only for one night. When the morning came, a letter came with
it, which told me that my bitterest enemy on earth (you have meddled
sufficiently with my affairs to know what enemy I mean) had revenged
herself on me in my absence. In following the impulse which led me to my
sister, I had gone to my ruin.

"The mischief was beyond all present remedy, when I received the news of
it. Whatever had happened, whatever might happen, I made up my mind to
persist in my resolution of seeing Norah before I did anything else. I
suspected _you_ of being concerned in the disaster which had overtaken
me--because I felt positively certain at Aldborough that you and Mrs.
Lecount had written to each other. But I never suspected Norah. If I
lay on my death-bed at this moment I could say with a safe conscience I
never suspected Norah.

"So I went this morning to Westmor eland House to ask you for my
sister's address, and to acknowledge plainly that I suspected you of
being again in correspondence with Mrs. Lecount.

"When I inquired for you at the door, they told me you had gone out, but
that you were expected back before long. They asked me if I would see
your sister, who was then in the school-room. I desired that your sister
should on no account be disturbed: my business was not with her, but
with you. I begged to be allowed to wait in a room by myself until you
returned.

"They showed me into the double room on the ground-floor, divided by
curtains--as it was when I last remember it. There was a fire in the