sent stigma,
whether or no it belonged to any other.

No sooner was Henry gone than Mr. Rymer waited on the dean to report what
he had heard; and he frankly attributed his daughter's false confession
to the compulsive methods he had adopted in charging her with the
offence. Upon this statement, Henry's love to her was also a solution of
his seemingly inconsistent conduct on that singular occasion.

The dean immediately said, "I will put the matter beyond all doubt; for I
will this moment send for the present reputed mother; and if she
acknowledges the child, I will instantly commit her to prison for the
attempt of putting it to death."

The curate applauded the dean's sagacity; a warrant was issued, and Agnes
brought prisoner before the grandfather of her child.

She appeared astonished at the peril in which she found herself.
Confused, also, with a thousand inexpressible sensations which the dean's
presence inspired, she seemed to prevaricate in all she uttered. Accused
of this prevarication, she was still more disconcerted; said, and unsaid;
confessed herself the mother of the infant, but declared she did not
know, then owned she _did_ know, the name of the man who had undone her,
but would never utter it. At length she cast herself on her knees before
the father of her betrayer, and supplicated "he would not punish her with
severity, as she most penitently confessed her fault, so far as is
related to herself."

While Mr. and Mrs. Norwynne, just entered on the honeymoon, were sitting
side by side enjoying with peace and with honour conjugal society, poor
Agnes, threatened, reviled, and sinking to the dust, was hearing from the
mouth of William's father the enormity of those crimes to which his son
had been accessory. She saw the mittimus written that was to convey her
into a prison--saw herself delivered once more into the hands of
constables, before her resolution left her, of concealing the name of
William in her story. She now, overcome with affright, and thinking she
should expose him still more in a public court, if hereafter on her trial
she should be obliged to name him--she now humbly asked the dean to hear
a few words she had to say in private, where she promised she "would
speak nothing but the truth."

This was impossible, he said--"No private confessions before a
magistrate! All must be done openly."

She urged again and again the same request: it was denied more
peremptorily than at first.