“Caroline, I had hoped the fatal secret made known to me would never have passed my lips, but for the restoration of your peace it shall be divulged, nor will the injured one who first intrusted it to me, to preserve you from ruin, believe I have betrayed her trust.  You have not suspected the whole extent of evil that would have been yours, had you indeed fled with that hypocritical villain.  Caroline, Lord Alphingham is a married man—­his wife still lives!”

Had a thunderbolt fallen at her feet, or the earth yawned beneath her, not more pale or transfixed would Caroline have stood than she did as those unexpected words fell clear and shrill as a trumpet-blast upon her tortured ear.  Amid all her conjectures as to the meaning of Percy’s words, this idea had never crossed her mind; that Alphingham could thus have deliberately been seeking her ruin, under the guise of love and honour, was a stretch of villainy that entered not into her conception.  Now that the truth was known, she stood as if suddenly turned to marble, her cheek, her very lips bearing the colour of death.  Then came the thoughts of the past; had it not been for those recollections of her childhood, her mother’s love, devotion, what would she now have been?  In vain she struggled to bear up against that rushing torrent of thought; every limb was seized with violent trembling, her brain reeled, and she would have sunk to the ground, had not Percy, alarmed at the effect of his words, led her tenderly to a seat, and kneeling by her side, threw his arms around her.  Her head sunk on his shoulder, and she clung to him as if evil and guilt and wretchedness still hovered like fiends around her, and he would protect her from them all.  Fire again flashed from the eyes of the young man as he thought on Alphingham, but for her sake he restrained himself, and endeavoured by a few soothing words to calm her.

“Tell me all—­all you know, I can bear it,” she said at length, almost inaudibly, and looking up with features as deathlike as before.  Percy complied with her request, and briefly related as follows: 

He had become acquainted during his college life, he told her, with a widow and her daughter, who lived about four or five miles from Oxford.  Some service he had rendered them, of sufficient importance as to make him an ever welcome and acceptable guest within the precincts of that cottage, which proclaimed a refined and elevated taste, although its inmates were not of the highest class.  Both Percy fancied were widows, although he scarcely knew the foundation of that fancy, except the circumstance of their living together, and the husband of the younger lady never appearing; nor was his name ever mentioned in the confidential conversations he sometimes had with them, which the service he had had in his power to do demanded.  Mrs. Amesfort, the daughter, still possessed great beauty, which a shade of pensive thought, sometimes amounting to deep melancholy, rendered even more lovely.