sprang as by magic from the ground they trod on.

When, that evening, I was with Edward again, I looked up into
his face, and talked to him as I had not talked to him for
nearly two years; I laughed gaily, as in days of old; I saw
with exultation that he laughed too, and that he asked Mrs.
Middleton to play at chess with my uncle, instead of him, and
that he did not leave my side till the last moment that I
remained in the drawing-room; and I was foolishly, wickedly
happy, till I went up to my room, and laid my head on my
pillow; _then_ came, in all its bitterness, the remembrance,
that, although _he_ might not know my secret, _another_ did;
that if, indeed, he loved me, as I now thought he did (for I
remembered that letter to Henry, which I had so long
misunderstood, and now recognised its true meaning),--if
indeed he loved me, I must, I ought, to tell him the truth;
and then he would despise me, he would hate me, not only for
the deed itself, but for my long silence,--for my cowardly
concealment. No; I had suffered too dreadfully during those
minutes when I had felt myself on the brink of unavoidable
confession;--that happen what might, I would not, I could not,
disclose to him the _truth_. But should I, then, marry him?
Should I inherit my uncle's fortune? Should I become one day
the mistress of Elmsley; and, from the midst of all that this
world can give of joy, look, as Belshazzar looked on the
hand-writing on the wall, on the torrent where my own hand had
hurled Mrs. Middleton's child, Edward's cousin; and one day,
perhaps, be denounced, betrayed, exposed, by Henry Lovell,
whose words began that night to be realised:--"With every
throb of love for another, there will be in your heart a pang
of fear, a shudder of terror, a thought of me!"

Hour after hour I tossed about my bed, unable to close my eyes
in sleep; at times, in spite of everything, feeling wildly
happy; at others, forming the most solemn resolutions, that
neither the weakness of my own heart, or the persecutions of
others, should induce me to think even of marrying Edward, and
yet unable to conceal from myself, that the next time I saw
him, the next time my eyes met his, they would betray to him
all that long-subdued and unconfessed love which had now grown
into a passion astonishing to myself, and ruled my
undisciplined mind beyond all power of restraint and control.

In the morning I fell into a short and uneasy slumber, in
which, twenty time