andeville. She will not disguise guilt either in
the levity of the world, or in the affectations of sentiment. She will
be wretched, and for ever. I hold the destinies of her future life, and
yet I am base enough to hesitate whether to save or destroy her. Oh, how
fearful, how selfish, how degrading, is unlawful love!

You know my theoretical benevolence for everything that lives; you have
often smiled at its vanity. I see now that you were right; for it seems
to me almost superhuman virtue not to destroy the person who is dearest
to me on earth.

I remember writing to you some weeks since that I would come to London
Little did I know of the weakness of my own mind. I told her that I
intended to depart. She turned pale--she trembled--but she did not
speak. Those signs which should have hastened my departure have taken
away the strength even to think of it.

I am here still! I go to E------ every day. Sometimes we sit in silence;
I dare not trust myself to speak. How dangerous are such moments!
_Ammutiscon lingue parlen l'alme_.

Yesterday they left us alone. We had been conversing with Lady Margaret
on indifferent subjects. There was a pause for some minutes. I looked
up; Lady Margaret had left the room. The blood rushed into my cheek--my
eyes met Emily's; I would have given worlds to have repeated with my
lips what those eyes expressed. I could not even speak--I felt choked
with contending emotions. There was not a breath stirring; I heard my
very heart beat. A thunderbolt would have been a relief. Oh God! if
there be a curse, it is to burn, swell, madden with feelings which you
are doomed to conceal! This is, indeed, to be "a cannibal of one's own
heart." [Bacon]

It was sunset. Emily was alone upon the lawn which sloped towards the
lake, and the blue still waters beneath broke, at bright intervals,
through the scattered and illuminated trees. She stood watching the sun
sink with wistful and tearful eyes. Her soul was sad within her. The ivy
which love first wreathes around his work had already faded away, and
she now only saw the desolation of the ruin it concealed. Never more
for her was that freshness of unwakened feeling which invests all things
with a perpetual daybreak of sunshine, and incense, and dew. The
heart may survive the decay or rupture of an innocent and lawful
affection--"la marque reste, mais la blessure guerit"--but the love of
darkness and guilt is branded in a character ineffaceable--eternal!