ntrol, previously to
taking legal steps for a final separation.

Circumstanced as I was, my existence was little short of intolerable,
for, besides the fearful suspicions which attached to my husband, I
plainly perceived that if Lord Glenfallen were not relieved, and that
speedily, insanity must supervene. I therefore expected my father's
arrival, or at least a letter to announce it, with indescribable
impatience.

About a week after the execution had taken place, Lord Glenfallen one
morning met me with an unusually sprightly air.

'Fanny,' said he, 'I have it now for the first time in my power to
explain to your satisfaction everything which has hitherto appeared
suspicious or mysterious in my conduct. After breakfast come with me to
my study, and I shall, I hope, make all things clear.'

This invitation afforded me more real pleasure than I had experienced
for months. Something had certainly occurred to tranquillize my
husband's mind in no ordinary degree, and I thought it by no means
impossible that he would, in the proposed interview, prove himself the
most injured and innocent of men.

Full of this hope, I repaired to his study at the appointed hour. He was
writing busily when I entered the room, and just raising his eyes, he
requested me to be seated.

I took a chair as he desired, and remained silently awaiting his
leisure, while he finished, folded, directed, and sealed his letter.
Laying it then upon the table with the address downward, he said,

'My dearest Fanny, I know I must have appeared very strange to you and
very unkind--often even cruel. Before the end of this week I will show
you the necessity of my conduct--how impossible it was that I should
have seemed otherwise. I am conscious that many acts of mine must have
inevitably given rise to painful suspicions--suspicions which, indeed,
upon one occasion, you very properly communicated to me. I have got two
letters from a quarter which commands respect, containing information as
to the course by which I may be enabled to prove the negative of all the
crimes which even the most credulous suspicion could lay to my charge. I
expected a third by this morning's post, containing documents which will
set the matter for ever at rest, but owing, no doubt, to some neglect,
or, perhaps, to some difficulty in collecting the papers, some
inevitable delay, it has not come to hand this morning, according to my
expectation. I was finishing one to the very same qu