"I 'll du naething afore the morn. Far'er nor that I winna pledge
mysel'," answered Miss Horn, and with the words moved towards the
door.
"Hadn't you better take this with you?" said the marquis, offering
the little note, which he had carried all the time between his
finger and thumb.
"There 's nae occasion. I hae plenty wantin' that. Only dinna lea'
't lyin' aboot."
"There 's small danger of that," said the marquis, and rang the
bell.
The moment she was out of the way, he went up to his own room, and,
flinging the door to, sat down at the table, and laid his arms and
head upon it. The acrid vapour of tears that should have been wept
long since, rose to his eyes: he dashed his hand across them, as
if ashamed that he was not even yet out of sight of the kingdom of
heaven. His own handwriting, of a period when all former sins and
defilements seemed about to be burned clean from his soul by the
fire of an honest and virtuous love, had moved him; for genuine
had been his affection for the girl who had risked and lost so much
for him. It was with no evil intent, for her influence had rendered
him for the time incapable of playing her false, but in part from
reasons of prudence, as he persuaded himself, for both their sakes,
and in part led astray by the zest which minds of a certain cast
derive from the secrecy of pleasure, that he had persuaded her to
the unequal yoking of honesty and secrecy. But, suddenly called
away and sent by the Prince on a private mission, soon after their
marriage, and before there was any special reason to apprehend
consequences that must lead to discovery, he had, in the difficulties
of the case and the hope of a speedy return, left her without any
arrangement for correspondence and all he had ever heard of her
more was from his brother, then the marquis--a cynical account
of the discovery of her condition, followed almost immediately by
a circumstantial one of her death and that of her infant.
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