woman, 'you will loathe me soon enough. You will fly from me as from a pestilence, when you know me for what I am-for the wretch who lived with Sir Philip Thornleigh-lived with him for years, and was his consolation when he was left alone.' "You?' gasped the listener, and the wrongs of her sister seemed magnified a thousandfold as she gazed wildly at the woman who had supplanted her. that 'Yes-even me-and said I not rightly you would look upon me with loathing? And yet, what was there left for me to do?' continued she in a softer tone. 'He was unhappy, and feared that he had been wronged. All were gone, even his poor little children; and I—why, I had been almost his wife for years, before he ever knew your sister. I do not speak of my wrongs of the vows of endless constancy he swore to me; or of mine to him; which I swear, before Heaven, were truly kept! But I do say that he should be forgiven by her who drove him to the sin.' You must not speak so of my poor sister,' faltered Alice, indeed you must not.' 'Pardon me, but it is of Lady Thornleigh that I must speak. Since yesterday at noon, I have been endeavouring to find an opportunity of conversing with you alone; for I would fain spare your sister the pain, and, what she would doubtless consider the degradation, of a personal interview with one who has fallen so low as I have.' Alice signed to her to proceed. 'I have said that I was with your brotherin-law when he lay dying-but oh! may I never again witness so sad a spectacle! Poor Philip! (and for a moment she covered her face with her hands, as though to shut out a painful vision) poor Philip! he saw strange visitors as he stood on the threshold of the world to come; and in one of those visitors he thought he recognized his wife.' Alice wept, and, with the tears dropping on her clasped hands, said imploringly: And then? Oh, tell me something of his last moments that will console his widow. Let me be the bearer of a message to her from her dead husband.' 'Be patient; and you shall know all. Philip's death-bed was not altogether uncheered by hope-hope for his children here, and for the pardon of his own sins hereafter. A blessed feeling, amounting almost to a conviction of his wife's truth, stole over his senses at the last; and he bade me say to her, that even though erring he forgave her; and her name, mingled with those of his children, were the last sounds he uttered ere he breathed his last.' 'God be thanked!' was Alice's solemn thanksgiving, and then, a feeling indescribable to herself, induced her to take the hand of that messenger of glad tidings, and press it against her own warm heart. Helen's swelled with fervent gratitude, for that moment was a compensation for many a past suffering. 'God bless you!' she ejaculated, as soon as the gasp in her throat permitted her to speak. 'God bless you! for you, a pure, good woman have not scorned the touch of the poor sinner's hand. And ah! believe me when I say that did the world contain more of Charity such as yours, there would be in it fewer such as I am. But now, if I may venture to advise, I would suggest your return to Lady Thornleigh, and that you should at once inform her of all that I have said to you. This done, you must prepare her to hear more; for a most important portion of my mission has yet to be fulfilled. I shall remain in the town, and you will, I trust, let me know the effect of your communication; and will inform me when and where we can meet again.' But little more passed between them, ere they parted; Helen, to enter with a relieved heart her spacious room on the first story of |