ew not what they were till I saw
them looking at me from the paper, like my own image reflected in a
glass. Had I been writing a page for the book of God's remembrance, it
could not have been more nakedly true. I do believe there is inspiration
now given to the spirit in the extremity of its need, and that we often
speak and write as if moved by the Holy Ghost, and language comes to us
in a Pentecostal shower, burning with heaven's fire, and tongues of
flame are put in our mouth, and our spirits move as with the wings of a
mighty wind.

I recollect the closing sentence of the letter. I knew it contained my
fate; and yet I felt that I had not the power to change it.

"Come back to your country, your mother, and Edith. I do not bid you
come back to me, for it seems that the distance that separates us is too
immeasurable to be overcome. I remember telling you, when the midnight
moon was shining upon us in the solitude of our chamber, that I saw as
in a vision a frightful abyss opening between us, and I stood on one icy
brink and you on the other, and I saw you receding further and further
from me, and my arms vainly sought to reach over the cold chasm, and my
own voice came back to me in mournful echoes. That vision is realized.
Our hearts can never again meet till that gulf is closed, and confidence
firm as a rock makes a bridge for our souls.

"I have loved you as man never should be loved, and that love can never
pass away. But from the deathlike trance in which you left me, my spirit
has risen with holier views of life and its duties. An union, so
desolated by storms of passion as ours has been, must be sinful and
unhallowed in the sight of God. It has been severed by the hand of
violence, and never, with my consent, will be renewed, unless we can
make a new covenant, to which the bow of heaven's peace shall be an
everlasting sign; till passion shall be exalted by esteem, love
sustained by confidence, and religion pure and undefiled be the
sovereign principle of our lives."

CHAPTER LIV.

The Tombs!--shall I ever forget my first visit to that dismal abode of
crime, woe, and despair?--never!

I had nerved myself for the trial, and went with the spirit of a martyr,
though with blanched cheek and faltering step, into the heart of that
frowning pile, on which I could never gaze without shuddering.

Clinging to the arm of Richard, I felt myself borne along through cold
and dreary walls, that seemed to my sta