e exhausted--I can struggle no
longer--and if I leave my wife at a moment when she should
most require the support of my presence, and such comfort as
it would afford her, it is because the discovery of all which
I have hitherto laboured to conceal, would be a more severe
blow to her than my absence will prove. I shall endeavour to
give as plausible an appearance as I can to the step which I
am about to take. It is madness to hazard it; but you drive me
mad. I cannot trust myself to take leave of you; by the time
you awake to-morrow, I shall have left Elmsley, unless I
receive from you some token of regard, some expression of
regret, some promise, that for the future you will have
patience with me. Is it much to ask that my love should be
_endured?_ Would not others in my place exact more? My fate,
yours, and Alice's, are for a second time in your hands. I am
still near you--near her; she is sleeping quietly, unconscious
that the fate of my life and of hers is at this moment
deciding. Write to me one word of kindness, and I am still
ready to conquer my stormy feelings--to subdue my selfish
impulses--to be to her a kind and constant protector--and to
you, a friend. I shall wait here, and count the minutes till
your answer reaches me, and each will seem to me a century;
but do not imagine that I write this only to frighten you into
a reconciliation. I solemnly swear, that, if you do not bid me
stay, and bind yourself to a patient, constant, and generous
indulgence to feelings, which, if concealed from others, must
be appreciated and respected by you; if you do not send me
such an answer, I swear that I have seen you and Alice for the
last time; and that the misery which may in consequence befall
her and you, my sister, and Edward himself, is your doing, and
not mine. Ellen, decide!"

I read this letter in my dressing-room with my maid waiting in
the passage, and in momentary expectation of Edward's coming
up-stairs. Bewildered, I stood with it in my hand, unable to
think or to decide. In five minutes there was a knock at the
door; and my maid said--"Mr. Lovell is waiting for the answer,
Ma'am."

The clock struck twelve; the door of the billiard-room opened,
and I heard the voices of the men preparing to leave it. I
snatched a bit of paper on the table and wrote hastily in
pencil upon it--"Do not go, I implore you. I forgive, and will
bear with you."

I sealed and gave it; and the instant afterwards would have
g