treated. M. d'Harville easily
penetrated the girlish openness of my character; why, then, did he not
trust to my sympathy and generosity of feeling, and tell me the whole
truth?"

"Because you would have refused him."

"This very expression proves how guilty he was, and how treacherous was
his conduct, if he really entertained the idea of my rejecting his hand
if informed of the truth!"

"He loved you too well to incur the risk of losing you."

"No, no, my lord; had he really loved me, he would never have sacrificed
me to his selfish passion. Nay, so wretched was my position at that
time, and such was my desire to quit my father's roof, that, had he been
candid and explicit with me, it is more than probable he would have
moved me to pity the species of misery he was condemned to endure, and
to sympathise with one so cut off from the tender ties which sweeten
life. I really believe, at this moment, that, touched by his open, manly
confession, as well as interested for one labouring under so severe an
infliction of the Almighty's hand, I should scarcely have had the
courage to refuse him my hand; and, once aware of all I had undertaken,
nothing should have deterred me from the full and conscientious
discharge of every solemn duty towards him. But to compel this pity and
interest, merely because he had me in his power, and to exact my
consideration and sympathy, because, unhappily, I was his wife, and had
sworn to obligations, the full force of which had been concealed from
me, was at once the act of a coward and a wrong-judging mind. How could
I hold myself bound to endure the heavy penalties of my unfortunate
marriage, when my husband had trampled on every tie which binds an
honourable mind? And now, my lord, you may form some little idea of my
wedded life; you are now aware how shamefully I was deceived, and that,
too, by the person in whose hands I unsuspectingly placed the future
happiness of my whole existence. I had implicitly trusted in M.
d'Harville, and he had most dishonourably and treacherously repaid my
trustfulness with bitter and irremediable wrongs. The gentle, timid
melancholy which had so greatly interested me in his favour, and which
he attributed to pious recollections, was, in truth, only the workings
of a conscience ill at ease, and the knowledge of his own incurable
infirmity."

"Still, were he a stranger or an enemy, a heart so noble and generous as
yours would pity such sufferings as he endur