n to her poor mother, her mind was disordered, and became yet more
dangerously so, I can well believe; that she is now recovered, and
thinks with shame, or refuses to think at all, of her imprudent flight,
I can believe also; but I do not believe, the World cannot believe, that
she did not, knowingly and purposely, quit her mother's roof, and in
quest of that young stranger so incautiously, so unfeelingly admitted
to her mother's house during the very time you were detained on the
most awful of human accusations. Every one in the town knows that Mr.
Margrave visited daily at Mrs. Ashleigh's during that painful period;
every one in the town knows in what strange out-of-the-way place this
young man had niched himself; and that a yacht was bought, and lying in
wait there. What for? It is said that the chaise in which you brought
Miss Ashleigh back to her home was hired in a village within an easy
reach of Mr. Margrave's lodging--of Mr. Margrave's yacht. I rejoice that
you saved the poor girl from ruin; but her good name is tarnished; and
if Anne Ashleigh, whom I sincerely pity, asks me my advice, I can but
give her this: 'Leave L----, take your daughter abroad; and if she
is not to marry Mr. Margrave, marry her as quietly and as quickly as
possible to some foreigner.'"

"Madam! madam! this, then, is your friendship to her--to me! Oh, shame
on you to insult thus an affianced husband! Shame on me ever to have
thought you had a heart!"

"A heart, man!" she exclaimed, almost fiercely, springing up, and
startling me with the change in her countenance and voice. "And little
you would have valued, and pitilessly have crushed this heart, if I had
suffered myself to show it to you! What right have you to reproach me?
I felt a warm interest in your career, an unusual attraction in your
conversation and society. Do you blame me for that, or should I blame
myself? Condemned to live amongst brainless puppets, my dull occupation
to pull the strings that moved them, it was a new charm to my life
to establish friendship and intercourse with intellect and spirit
and courage. Ah! I understand that look, half incredulous, half
inquisitive."

"Inquisitive, no; incredulous, yes! You desired my friendship, and how
does your harsh judgment of my betrothed wife prove either to me or to
her mother, whom you have known from your girlhood, the first duty of a
friend,--which is surely not that of leaving a friend's side the moment
that he needs co