“Helen, what is it?” said May, almost overcome, while she took the package up, and looked at it.

“It is the lost will, May, which it was supposed you had burnt. This is my guilt, Walter,” she said, turning to her husband; “this is the barrier which has lifted itself, like a wall of lead, between my soul and heaven.  Now spurn me, my husband—­despise me, May; then, perhaps, loaded with disgrace, and forsaken and desolate, my Father in heaven may receive me once more.”

“Base woman!” exclaimed her husband, turning from her.

“Sir,” said May, grasping his hand; “Helen, whatever her faults may have been, is worthy of you now.  As to the will, except certain bequests, legacies, and annuities to the poor, over which I have no control, I want none of it.  Only promise to deal kindly with her in this her hour of genuine humility and repentance.  But, see—­she is falling.”

“Unworthy, dishonorable Helen, how dare you wed me with this wicked act on your conscience?” said the outraged man, looking coldly down on the pale and prostrate form at his feet.  “I will leave her with you, May.”

“Where are you going, sir?” said May, kneeling down, and lifting Helen’s burning head to her breast.

“To destruction!” he replied, in a low, bitter tone.

“Do not dare leave us, sir,” said May, in a commanding tone.  “Help me to lift this penitent woman—­so deserving now of your tender support—­to the bed, and go for a physician and Father Fabian.  Bring both immediately, for I believe a brain fever is coming on.”

“Would that she had died before!  Would that she had died ere my trust and love were so cruelly shaken!” he exclaimed wildly, as he raised her lifeless form from the floor, and laid it on the bed.

“Oh, Walter Jerrold! are you mad?  To wish she had died without repentance—­without proving that her nature, by rising through grace above the guilt of sin, is worthy of your highest esteem and love?  Go, sir, unless you wish your servants to become acquainted with the whole affair, and to-morrow hear it recited at the corners of the streets by every newsboy in the city.  I shall have to ring for assistance.”

“Give me that will,” he said, moodily.

“For what?”

“To place it in Mr. Fielding’s hands, and tell him the disgraceful story, lest he afterwards think I have been an accessory to Helen’s guilt,” he replied.

“No, sir.  It is entirely my affair, and I wish no interference.  I will arrange it all myself, and be more tender of you and yours than you, in your savage mood, could be,” replied May, holding the will firmly to her bosom.

When the physician came, he, after a careful examination, pronounced the case to be a violent attack of brain-fever.  Helen was at times in a raving delirium; then she would lie for hours without sense or motion.  Sometimes she implored in moving terms her husband’s forgiveness; then, when the violence of the paroxysm was passing away, she would whisper, “Lead me, Mother!  Lead me through this howling wilderness.  Oh, save—­save me!  I am pursued.  Hold me, my Mother—­my sorrowful Mother!”