ared to alter it. The old restlessness in her movements,
the old mobility in her expression, appeared no more. Her face passively
maintained its haggard composure, its changeless unnatural calm. Mr.
Pendril might have softened his hard sentence on her, if he had seen
her now; and Mrs. Lecount, in the plenitude of her triumph, might have
pitied her fallen enemy at last.

Hardly four months had passed since the wedding-day at Aldborough, and
the penalty for that day was paid already--paid in unavailing remorse,
in hopeless isolation, in irremediable defeat! Let this be said for her;
let the truth which has been told of the fault be told of the expiation
as well. Let it be recorded of her that she enjoyed no secret triumph on
the day of her success. The horror of herself with which her own act had
inspired her, had risen to its climax when the design of her marriage
was achieved. She had never suffered in secret as she suffered when the
Combe-Raven money was left to her in her husband's will. She had never
felt the means taken to accomplish her end so unutterably degrading to
herself, as she felt them on the day when the end was reached. Out of
that feeling had grown the remorse which had hurried her to seek pardon
and consolation in her sister's love. Never since it had first entered
her heart, never since she had first felt it sacred to her at her
father's grave, had the Purpose to which she had vowed herself, so
nearly lost its hold on her as at this time. Never might Norah's
influence have achieved such good as on the day when that influence was
lost--the day when the fatal words were overheard at Miss Garth's--the
day when the fatal letter from Scotland told of Mrs. Lecount's revenge.

The harm was done; the chance was gone. Time and Hope alike had both
passed her by.

Faintly and more faintly the inner voices now pleaded with her to pause
on the downward way. The discovery which had poisoned her heart with its
first distrust of her sister; the tidings which had followed it of her
husband's death; the sting of Mrs. Lecount's triumph, felt through all,
had done their work. The remorse which had embittered her married
life was deadened now to a dull despair. It was too late to make the
atonement of confession--too late to lay bare to the miserable husband
the deeper secrets that had once lurked in the heart of the miserable
wife. Innocent of all thought of the hideous treachery which Mrs.
Lecount had imputed to her--s