ke, he would never have gone near the smugglers;
and that, without perhaps directly giving her sanction to such
connexions, she had never decidedly opposed them--and had availed
herself of their profits. Some were unfeeling enough to throw this in
the poor creature's teeth, whose heart was already wounded beyond what
she could bear; and after that she became perfectly frantic."

"You visited her then, Mr. Williams?"

"I did for a time; and indeed she has always been willing to hold
intercourse with me in consideration of what I did and attempted to do
for her son. But I will confess to you, Mr. Bertram, that the spectacle
of a human being originally of strong mind driven by extremity of
wretchedness into the total wreck of her own final peace,--her moral
feelings all giving way before a devilish malignity, and her wits
gradually unsettling under this tremendous internal conflict,--was too
pitiable to be supported by me, unless I had felt myself able in some
way or other to stem the misery which I witnessed: and, after the
perpetration of that great crime by which she sought to avenge herself,
I could never bear to go near her; though I have occasionally conversed
with her on the roads."

"What crime do you speak of, Mr. Williams? and how is it that, having
committed any crime to justify your present language, she is yet
allowed to go at large?

"I do not speak of any crime proved in a court of justice, or perhaps
capable of being so; but nobody ever doubted that Mrs. Godber was the
secret mover in the matter; though the very nature of her purpose
obliged her to employ the hand of an intermediate agent.--About three
months after the execution of the poor boy, and when the ferment of
that unhappy affair was beginning to subside in all minds but those
of his mother and of Sir Morgan, lady Walladmor lay in of twins. By
whose means it never has been discovered,--the only person, who could
certainly have cleared up that matter, being so soon removed by
death,--but from some quarter or other a moving representation had been
made to lady Walladmor, when riding out, in favour of a young woman who
about that time applied for the place of under nurse: she was described
to have been deserted under circumstances of peculiar interest by a
person to whom she was under an engagement of marriage; and other
particulars, implying some unusual elevation of character in the young
woman, were reported in a way which was likely to plead p