ad knowledge,--yet whatever
sorrow or evil falls upon you, I must or ought to share. Let us have no
secrets; and while the Truth which gives its purest luster to your eye,
and its richest rose to your cheek, still reigns in your soul, I cannot
dream of a fault grave enough to deserve harsher rebuke than the kiss of
forgiveness."

What lines to read at such a moment! No wonder their meaning reached her
mind far differently than it had done when they were first received. Then
she could have little heeded it; witness how carelessly the letter had
been put away--how forgotten had been its contents.

Her tears had flowed in torrents, but Lucy Ferrars no longer strove to
check them. And yet there gleamed through them a brighter smile than had
visited her countenance for many a month. A resolve approved by all her
better nature was growing firm within her heart; and that which an hour
before would have seemed too dreadful to contemplate was losing half its
terrors. How often an ascent, which looks in the distance a bare
precipice, shows us, when we approach its face, the notches by which we
may climb!--and not a few of the difficulties of life yield to our will
when we bravely encounter them.

"Why did I fear him so much?" murmured Lady Lucy to herself. "I ought not
to have needed such an assurance as this to throw myself at his feet, and
bear even scorn and rebuke, rather than prolong the reign of falsehood
and deceit. Yes--yes," and gathering a heap of papers in her hand with
the "love-letter" beneath, she descended the stairs.

There is no denying that Lady Lucy paused at the library door--no denying
that her heart beat quickly, and her breath seemed well-nigh spent; but
she was right to act on the good impulse, and not wait until the new-born
courage should sink.

Mr. Ferrars had finished the newspaper, and was writing an unimportant
note; his back was to the door, and hearing the rustle of his wife's
dress, and knowing her step, he did not turn his head sufficiently to
observe her countenance, but he said, good-humoredly,

"At last! What have you been about? I thought we were to go out before
luncheon to look at the bracelet I mentioned to you."

"No, Walter--no bracelet--you must never give me any jewels again;" and
as Lady Lucy spoke she leaned against a chair for support. At such words
her husband turned quickly round, started up, and exclaimed.

"Lucy, my love!--in tears--what has happened?" and, finding that