ned was all that actuated her
communication, he dreamed not of the fierce and ungovernable jealousy
which envied the very disgrace which her confession was intended to
award. Well said the French enthusiast, "that the heart, the most serene
to appearance, resembles that calm and glassy fountain which cherishes
the monster of the Nile in the bosom of its waters." Whatever reward
Mrs. St. John proposed to herself in this action, verily she has had the
recompense that was her due. Those consequences of her treachery, which
I hasten to relate, have ceased to others--to her they remain. Amidst
the pleasures of dissipation, one reflection has rankled at her mind;
one dark cloud has rested between the sunshine and her soul; like the
murderer in Shakespeare, the revel where she fled for forgetfulness
has teemed to her with the spectres of remembrance. O thou untameable
conscience! thou that never flatterest--thou that watchest over the
human heart never to slumber or to sleep--it is thou that takest from
us the present, barrest to us the future, and knittest the eternal chain
that binds us to the rock and the vulture of the past!

The evening came on still and dark; a breathless and heavy apprehension
seemed gathered over the air: the full large clouds lay without motion
in the dull sky, from between which, at long and scattered intervals,
the wan stars looked out; a double shadow seemed to invest the grouped
and gloomy trees that stood unwaving in the melancholy horizon. The
waters of the lake lay heavy and unagitated as the sleep of death; and
the broken reflections of the abrupt and winding banks rested upon their
bosoms, like the dreamlike remembrance of a former existence.

The hour of the appointment was arrived: Falkland stood by the spot,
gazing upon the lake before him; his cheek was flushed, his hand was
parched and dry with the consuming fire within him. His pulse beat thick
and rapidly; the demon of evil passions was upon his soul. He stood so
lost in his own reflections, that he did not for some moments perceive
the fond and tearful eye which was fixed upon him on that brow and
lip, thought seemed always so beautiful, so divine, that to disturb its
repose was like a profanation of something holy; and though Emily came
towards him with a light and hurried step, she paused involuntarily to
gaze upon that noble countenance which realised her earliest visions of
the beauty and majesty of love. He turned slowly, and per