have been weak of purpose," (as she said this, a strange sweetness and
mournfulness began to steal over her tones,) "miserably, guiltily weak,
all my life. Much sorrow and pain and heavy disappointment, when I was
young, did some great harm to me which I have never recovered since. I
have lived always in fear of others, and doubt of myself; and this has
made me guilty of a great sin towards _you._ Forgive me before I die! I
suspected the guilt that was preparing--I foreboded the shame that was
to come--they hid it from others' eyes; but, from the first, they could
not hide it from mine--and yet I never warned you as I ought! _That_ man
had the power of Satan over me! I always shuddered before him, as I used
to shudder at the darkness when I was a little child! My life has been
all fear--fear of _him;_ fear of my husband, and even of my daughter;
fear, worse still, of my own thoughts, and of what I had discovered that
should be told to _you._ When I tried to speak, you were too generous
to understand me--I was afraid to think my suspicions were right, long
after they should have been suspicions no longer. It was misery!--oh,
what misery from then till now!"

Her voice died away for a moment, in faint, breathless murmurings. She
struggled to recover it, and repeated in a whisper:

"Forgive me before I die! I have made a terrible atonement; I have borne
witness against the innocence of my own child. My own child! I dare
not bid God bless her, if they bring her to my bedside!--forgive
me!--forgive me before I die!"

She took my hand, and pressed it to her cold lips. The tears gushed into
my eyes, as I tried to speak to her.

"No tears for _me!_" she murmured gently. "Basil!--let me call you as
your mother would call you if she was alive--Basil! pray that I may be
forgiven in the dreadful Eternity to which I go, as _you_ have forgiven
me! And, for _her?_--oh! who will pray for _her_ when I am gone?"

Those words were the last I heard her pronounce. Exhausted beyond the
power of speaking more, though it were only in a whisper, she tried to
take my hand again, and express by a gesture the irrevocable farewell.
But her strength failed her even for this--failed her with awful
suddenness. Her hand moved halfway towards mine; then stopped, and
trembled for a moment in the air; then fell to her side, with the
fingers distorted and clenched together. She reeled where she stood, and
sank helplessly as I stretched out my arms to