r natural
conclusion that you were free to pay your addresses to Miss Restall, and
the poor young lady's innocent confidence in 'Miss Benshaw's' sympathy,
gave this unscrupulous woman the means of playing the heartless trick
on you which is now exposed. Malice and jealousy--I have it, mind, from
herself!--were not her only motives. 'But for that Cosway,' she said (I
spare you the epithet which she put before your name), 'with my money
and position, I might have married a needy lord, and sunned myself in
my old age in the full blaze of the peerage.' Do you understand how she
hated you, now? Enough of the subject! The moral of it, my dear Cosway,
is to leave this place, and try what change of scene will do for you. I
have time to spare; and I will go abroad with you. When shall it be?"

"Let me wait a day or two more," Cosway pleaded.

Stone shook his head. "Still hoping, my poor friend, for a line from
Miss Restall? You distress me."

"I am sorry to distress you, Stone. If I can get one pitying word from
_her_, I can submit to the miserable life that lies before me."

"Are you not expecting too much?"

"You wouldn't say so, if you were as fond of her as I am."

They were silent. The evening slowly darkened; and the mistress came in
as usual with the candles. She brought with her a letter for Cosway.

He tore it open; read it in an instant; and devoured it with kisses.
His highly wrought feelings found their vent in a little allowable
exaggeration. "She has saved my life!" he said, as he handed the letter
to Stone.

It only contained these lines:

"My love is yours, my promise is yours. Through all trouble, through all
profanation, through the hopeless separation that may be before us in
this world, I live yours--and die yours. My Edwin, God bless and comfort
you."

_The Fourth Epoch in Mr. Cosway's Life._

The separation had lasted for nearly two years, when Cosway and Stone
paid that visit to the country house which is recorded at the outset of
the present narrative. In the interval nothing had been heard of Miss
Restall, except through Mr. Atherton. He reported that Adela was leading
a very quiet life. The one remarkable event had been an interview
between "Miss Benshaw" and herself. No other person had been present;
but the little that was reported placed Miss Restall's character above
all praise. She had forgiven the woman who had so cruelly injured her!

The two friends, it may be remembered, had tra