nd. The bent of her thoughts was only too much inclined to
this. The evil human heart again. Many and many a time did she wake up
from a reverie, and strive to drive this mistaken view of things away
from her, taking shame to herself. Ten minutes afterward, she would
catch her brain reveling in the same rebellious vision. Mr. Carlyle's
love was not hers now, it was Barbara's. Mr. Carlyle did not belong to
her, he belonged to his wife. It was not only that he was not hers--he
was another's. You may, therefore, if you have the pleasure of being
experienced in this sort of thing, guess a little of what her inward
life was. Had there been no Barbara in the case, she might have lived
and borne it; as it was, it had killed her before her time, that and the
remorse together.

There had been other things, too. The re-appearance of Francis Levison
at West Lynne, in fresh contact, as may be said, with herself, had
struck terror to her heart, and the dark charge brought against him
augmented awfully her remorse. Then, the sharp lances perpetually thrust
upon her memory--the Lady Isabel's memory--from all sides, were full of
cruel stings, unintentionally though they were hurled. And there was
the hourly chance of discovery, and the never ceasing battle with her
conscience, for being at East Lynne at all. No wonder that the chords of
life were snapping; the wonder would have been had they remained whole.

"She brought it upon herself--she ought not to have come back to East
Lynne!" groans our moralist again.

Didn't I say so? Of course she ought not. Neither ought she to have
suffered her thoughts to stray, in the manner they did, towards Mr.
Carlyle. She ought not, but she did. If we all did just what we "ought,"
this lower proverb touching _fruit defendu_ would go out as a dead
letter.

She was nearer to death than she imagined. She knew, judging by her
declining strength and her inner feelings, that it could not be far off;
but she did not deem it was coming so very soon. Her mother had died
in a similar way. Some said of consumption--Dr. Martin did, you may
remember; some said of "waste;" the earl, her husband, said a broken
heart--you heard him say so to Mr. Carlyle in the first chapter of
this history. The earl was the one who might be supposed to know best.
Whatever may have been Lady Mount Severn's malady, she--to give you
the phrase that was in people's mouth's at the time--"went out like the
snuff of a candle." It was