elf? If I deny, who is there can prove? Suspicion can never light
upon the truth. If it does, it can never be converted into certainty.
Even my own lips cannot confirm it, since who will believe my testimony?

By such illusions was I fortified in my desperate resolution. Ludlow
returned at the time appointed. He informed me that Mrs. Benington
expected me next morning. She was ready to depart for her country
residence, where she proposed to spend the ensuing summer, and would
carry me along with her. In consequence of this arrangement, he said,
many months would elapse before he should see me again. You will indeed,
continued he, be pretty much shut up from all society. Your books and
your new friend will be your chief, if not only companions. Her life
is not a social one, because she has formed extravagant notions of the
importance of lonely worship and devout solitude. Much of her time will
be spent in meditation upon pious books in her closet. Some of it in
long solitary rides in her coach, for the sake of exercise. Little will
remain for eating and sleeping, so that unless you can prevail upon her
to violate her ordinary rules for your sake, you will be left pretty
much to yourself. You will have the more time to reflect upon what has
hitherto been the theme of our conversations. You can come to town when
you want to see me. I shall generally be found in these apartments.

In the present state of my mind, though impatient to see Mrs. Benington,
I was still more impatient to remove the veil between Ludlow and myself.
After some pause, I ventured to enquire if there was any impediment to
my advancement in the road he had already pointed out to my curiosity
and ambition.

He replied, with great solemnity, that I was already acquainted with
the next step to be taken in this road. If I was prepared to make him
my confessor, as to the past, the present, and the future, _without
exception or condition_, but what arose from defect of memory, he was
willing to receive my confession.

I declared myself ready to do so.

I need not, he returned, remind you of the consequences of concealment
or deceit. I have already dwelt upon these consequences. As to the past,
you have already told me, perhaps, all that is of any moment to know.
It is in relation to the future that caution will be chiefly necessary.
Hitherto your actions have been nearly indifferent to the ends of your
future existence. Confessions of the past are require