ich dishonours alike mother and child? You will not consummate
your wrong to Alice Darvil by robbing her of the fruit of a life
of penitence and remorse? You will not unveil her shame to her own
daughter? Convince yourself, and master yourself while you do so!"

"Fear me not," said Maltravers, with a terrible smile; "I will not
afflict my conscience with a double curse. As I have sowed, so must I
reap. Wait me here!"

CHAPTER III.

... MISERY That gathers force each moment as it rolls,
And must, at last, o'erwhelm me.--LILLO: _Fatal Curiosity_.

MALTRAVERS found Evelyn alone; she turned towards him with her usual
sweet smile of welcome; but the smile vanished at once, as her eyes met
his changed and working countenance; cold drops stood upon the rigid and
marble brow, the lips writhed as if in bodily torture, the muscles of
the face had fallen, and there was a wildness which appalled her in the
fixed and feverish brightness of the eyes.

"You are ill, Ernest,--dear Ernest, you are ill,--your look freezes me!"

"Nay, Evelyn," said Maltravers, recovering himself by one of those
efforts of which men who have _suffered without sympathy_ are alone
capable,--"nay, I am better now; I have been ill--very ill--but I am
better!"

"Ill! and I not know of it?" She attempted to take his hand as she
spoke. Maltravers recoiled.

"It is fire! it burns! Avaunt!" he cried, frantically. "O Heaven! spare
me, spare me!"

Evelyn was not seriously alarmed; she gazed on him with the tenderest
compassion. Was this one of those moody and overwhelming paroxysms to
which it had been whispered abroad that he was subject? Strange as it
may seem, despite her terror, he was dearer to her in that hour--as she
believed, of gloom and darkness--than in all the glory of his majestic
intellect, or all the blandishments of his soft address.

"What has happened to you?" she said, approaching him again; "have you
seen Lord Vargrave? I know that he has arrived, for his servant has been
here to say so; has he uttered anything to distress you? or has--" (she
added falteringly and timidly)--"has poor Evelyn offended you? Speak to
me,--only speak!"

Maltravers turned, and his face was now calm and serene save by its
extreme and almost ghastly paleness, no trace of the hell within him
could be discovered.

"Pardon me," said he, gently, "I know not this morning what I say or do;
think not of it, think not of me,--it will pass away when I hear yo