and a woman to answer to be committed.

There was a little parlor in the house of Sir Edward Moseley, that was the
privileged retreat of none but the members of his own family. Here the
ladies were accustomed to withdraw into the bosom of their domestic
quietude, when occasional visitors had disturbed their ordinary
intercourse; and many were the hasty and unreserved communications it had
witnessed between the sisters, in their stolen flights from the graver
scenes of the principal apartments. It might be aid to be sacred to the
pious feelings of the domestic affections. Sir Edward would retire to it
when fatigued with his occupations, certain of finding some one of those
he loved to draw his thoughts off from the cares of life to the little
incidents of his children's happiness; and Lady Moseley, even in the
proudest hours of her reviving splendor, seldom passed the door without
looking in, with a smile, on the faces she might find there. It was, in
fact, the room in the large mansion of the baronet, expressly devoted, by
long usage and common consent, to the purest feelings of human nature.
Into this apartment Denbigh had gained admission, as the one nearest to
his own room and requiring the least effort of his returning strength to
reach; and, perhaps, by an undefinable feeling of the Moseleys which had
begun to connect him with themselves, partly from his winning manners, and
partly by the sense of the obligation he had laid them under.

One warm day, John and his friend had sought this retreat, in expectation
of meeting his sisters, who they found, however, on inquiry, had walked to
the arbor. After remaining conversing for an hour by themselves, John was
called away to attend to a pointer that had been taken ill, and Denbigh
throwing a handkerchief over his head to guard against the danger of cold,
quietly composed himself on one of the comfortable sofas of the room, with
a disposition to sleep. Before he had entirely lost his consciousness, a
light step moving near him, caught his ear; believing it to be a servant
unwilling to disturb him, he endeavored to continue in his present mood,
until the quick but stifled breathing of some one nearer than before
roused his curiosity. He commanded himself, however, sufficiently, to
remain quiet; a blind of a window near him was carefully closed; a screen
drawn from a corner and placed so as sensibly to destroy the slight
draught of air in which he laid himself; and other ar