d he went south a worse man than he came.

When he left Mercy Leicester, he was a bigamist in law, but not at
heart. Kate was dead to him: he had given her up forever, and was
constant and true to his new wife.

But now he was false to Mercy, yet not true to Kate; and, curiously
enough, it was a day or two passed with his lawful wife that had
demoralized him. His unlawful wife had hitherto done nothing but improve
his character.

A great fault once committed is often the first link in a chain of acts
that look like crimes, but are, strictly speaking, consequences.

This man, blinded at first by his own foible, and after that the sport
of circumstances, was single-hearted by nature; and his conscience was
not hardened. He desired earnestly to free himself and both his wives
from the cruel situation; but to do this, one of them, he saw, must be
abandoned entirely; and his heart bled for her.

A villain or a fool would have relished the situation; many men would
have dallied with it; but, to do this erring man justice, he writhed and
sorrowed under it, and sincerely desired to end it.

And this was why he prized Kate's money so. It enabled him to render a
great service to her he had injured worse than he had the other, to her
he saw he must abandon.

But this was feeble comfort, after all. He rode along a miserable man;
none the less wretched and remorseful, that, ere he got into Lancashire,
he saw his way clear. This was his resolve: to pay old Vint's debts with
Kate's money; take the "Packhorse," get it made over to Mercy, give her
the odd two hundred pounds and his jewels, and fly. He would never see
her again; but would return home, and get the rest of the two thousand
pounds from Kate, and send it Mercy by a friend, who should tell her he
was dead, and had left word with his relations to send her all his
substance.

At last the "Packhorse" came in sight. He drew rein, and had half a mind
to turn back; but, instead of that, he crawled on, and very sick and
cold he felt.

Many a man has marched to the scaffold with a less quaking heart than he
to the "Packhorse."

His dejection contrasted strangely with the warm reception he met from
everybody there. And the house was full of women; and they seemed,
somehow, all cock-a-hoop, and filled with admiration of _him_.

"Where is she?" said he, faintly.

"Hark to the poor soul!" said a gossip. "Dame Vint, where's thy
daughter? gone out a-walking be-like?"

At t