T. MOORE.

Aurelia rode home in perplexity, much afraid of the combustibles at her
girdle, and hating the task her sister had forced on her. She felt as
if her heedless avowals had been high treason to her husband; and yet
Harriet was her elder, and those assurances that as a true woman she was
bound to clear up the mystery, made her cheeks burn with shame, and her
heart thrill with the determination to vindicate her husband, while the
longing to know the face of one who so loved her was freshly awakened.

She was strongly inclined to tell him all, indeed she knew herself well
enough to be aware that half a dozen searching questions would draw out
the whole confession of her own communication and Harriet's unworthy
suspicions; and humiliating as this would be, she longed for the
opportunity. Here, however, she was checked in her meditations by a
stumble of her horse, which proved to have lost a shoe. It was necessary
to leave the short cut, and make for the nearest forge, and when the
mischief was repaired, to ride home by the high road.

She thus came home much later than had been expected; Jumbo, Molly, and
the little girls were all watching for her, and greeted her eagerly. The
supper was already on the table for her, and she had only just given
Fay and Letty the cakes and comfits she had bought at Brentford for them
when Jumbo brought the message that his master hoped that madam, if not
too much fatigued, would come to him as soon as her supper was finished.

Accordingly, she came without waiting to change her dress, having only
taken off her hat and arranged her hair.

She felt guilty, and dreaded the being questioned, yet longed to make
her avowal and have all explained. The usual greetings passed, and then
Mr. Belamour said, "I heard your horse hoofs come in late. You were
detained?"

She explained about the shoe, and a few sentences were passing about her
sister when she detected a movement, as if a step were stealing towards
her, together with a hesitation in the remark Mr. Belamour was making
about Mrs. Hunter's good nature.

Quite irrelevantly came in the whispering voice, "Where is my dearest
life?"

"Sir, sir!" she cried, driven at last to bay, "what is this? Are you one
or two?"

"One with you, my sweetest life! Your own--your husband!"

Therewith there was a kind of groan further off, and as Aurelia felt a
hand on her dress, her fight and distress at the duality were complete.