terchange of thought
and feeling that the shock is proportionately greater. That a man should
be arraigned before a tribunal is a stain, but to a woman it is a brand
burned upon her forever.

There had been a time when May and Mrs. Morris lived together as
sisters. May had felt all the influence of a character more formed than
her own, and of one who, gifted and accomplished as she was, knew how to
extend that influence with consummate craft. In those long-ago days May
had confided to her every secret of her heart,--her early discontents
with Charles Heathcote; her pettish misgivings about the easy
confidence of his security; her half flirtation with young Layton,
daily inclining towards something more serious still. She recalled
to mind, too, how Mrs. Morris had encouraged her irritation against
Charles, magnifying all his failings into faults, and exaggerating the
natural indolence of his nature into the studied indifference of one
"sure of his bond." And last of all she thought of her in her relations
with Clara,--poor Clara, whose heart, overflowing with affection, had
been repelled and schooled into a mere mockery of sentiment.

That her own fortune had been wasted and dissipated by this woman she
well knew. Without hesitation or inquiry, May had signed everything that
was put before her, and now she really could not tell what remained to
her of all that wealth of which she used to hear so much and care so
little.

These thoughts tracked her along every line of the letter, and through
all the terrible details she was reading; the woman herself, in her
craft and subtlety, absorbed her entire attention. Even when she had
read to the end, and learned the tidings of Clara's fortune, her mind
would involuntarily turn back to Mrs. Penthony Morris and her wiles. It
was in an actual terror at the picture her mind had drawn of this deep
designing woman that Charles found her sitting with the letter before
her, and her eyes staring wildly and on vacancy.

"I see, May," said he, gently taking her hand, and seating himself at
her side, "this dreadful letter has shocked _you_, as it has shocked
_me_; but remember, dearest, we are only looking back at a peril we have
all escaped. She has _not_ separated us; she has not involved us in
the disgrace of relationship to her; she is not one of us; she is not
anything even to poor Clara; and though we may feel how narrowly we have
avoided all our dangers, let us be grateful for tha