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t believe you so altered in two months as to choose obduracy and misery, when pardon, and in time confidence and love, are offered in their stead. Get up from that crouching posture; it can be but mock humility, and so only aggravates your sin." Ellen rose slowly and painfully, and seating herself at the table some distance from her aunt, leaned her arms upon it, and buried her face within them. Never before and never after did half an hour appear so interminable to either Mrs. Hamilton or Ellen. It was well for the firmness of the former, perhaps, that she could not read the heart of that young girl, even if the cause of its anguish had been still concealed. Again and again did the wild longing, turning her actually faint and sick with its agony, come over her to reveal the whole, to ask but rest and mercy for herself, pardon and security for Edward: but then, clear as if held before her in letters of fire, she read every word of her brother's desperate letter, particularly "Breathe it to my uncle or aunt--for if she knows it he will--and you will never see me more." Her mother, pallid as death, seemed to stand before her, freezing confession on her heart and lips, looking at her threateningly, as she had so often seen her, as if the very thought were guilt. The rapidly advancing twilight, the large and lonely room, all added to that fearful illusion; and if Ellen did succeed in praying it was with desperate fervor for strength not to betray her brother. If ever there were a martyr spirit, it was enshrined in that young, frail form. "Aunt Emmeline, Aunt Emmeline, speak to me but one word--only one word of kindness before you go. I do not ask for mercy--there can be none for such a wretch as I am; I will bear without one complaint, one murmur, all you may inflict--you cannot be too severe. Nothing can be such agony as the utter loss of your affection; I thought, the last two months, that I feared you so much that it was all fear, no love: but now, now that you know my sin, it has all, all come back to make me still more wretched." And before Mrs. Hamilton could prevent, or was in the least aware of her intention, Ellen had obtained possession of one of her hands, and was covering it with kisses, while her whole frame shook with those convulsed, but completely tearless sobs. "Will you confess, Ellen, if I stay? Will you give me the proof that it _is_ such agony to lose my affection, that you _do_ love me as you pro
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