Joyce hid her face in her hands to conceal its emotion
from the motherless child. And just then Miss
Carlyle entered on tiptoe, and humbly sat down on
a low chair, her green face—green that night—in
its grief, its remorse, and its horror, looking nearly
as dark as her stockings.
She broke into a subdued wail.
“God be merciful to this dishonored house!”
Mr. Justice Hare turned into the gate between twelve
and one—turned in with a jaunty air; for
the justice was in spirits, he having won nine sixpences,
and his friend’s tap of ale having been unusually
good. When he reached his bedroom, he told Mrs.
Hare of a chaise and four which had gone tearing past
at a furious pace as he was closing the gate, coming
from the direction of East Lynne. He wondered
where it could be going at that midnight hour, and
whom it contained.
CHARMING RESULTS.
Nearly a year went by.
Lady Isabel Carlyle had spent it on the continent—that
refuge for such fugitives—now moving about
from place to place with her companion, now stationary
and alone. Quite half the time—taking
one absence with the other—he had been
away from her, chiefly in Paris, pursuing his own
course and his own pleasure.
How fared it with Lady Isabel? Just as it must
be expected to fare, and does fare, when a high-principled
gentlewoman falls from her pedestal. Never had
she experienced a moment’s calm, or peace, or
happiness, since the fatal night of quitting her home.
She had taken a blind leap in a moment of wild passion,
when, instead of the garden of roses it had been her
persuader’s pleasure to promise her she would
fall into, but which, in truth, she had barely glanced
at, for that had not been her moving motive, she had
found herself plunged into a yawning abyss of horror,
from which there was never more any escape—never
more, never more. The very instant—the
very night of her departure, she awoke to what she
had done. The guilt, whose aspect had been shunned
in the prospective, assumed at once its true frightful
color, the blackness of darkness; and a lively remorse,
a never-dying anguish, took possession of her soul
forever. Oh, reader, believe me! Lady—wife—mother!
Should you ever be tempted to abandon your home, so
will you awake. Whatever trials may be the lot
of your married life, though they may magnify themselves
to your crushed spirit as beyond the nature, the endurance
of woman to bear, resolve to bear them; fall
down upon your knees, and pray to be enabled to bear
them—pray for patience—pray for
strength to resist the demon that would tempt you
to escape; bear unto death, rather than forfeit your
fair name and your good conscience; for be assured
that the alternative, if you do rush on to it, will
be found worse than death.
