“I thought you had for ever abandoned them, my dear lord,” said Amabel, reproachfully.

“For awhile I have,” he replied, carelessly.

“You must leave me, if you return to them,” she rejoined.

“If I must, I must,” said the earl.

“You cannot mean this, my lord,” she cried, bursting into tears.  “You cannot be so changed.”

“I have never changed since you first knew me,” replied Rochester.

“Impossible!” she cried, in a tone of anguish; “you have not the faults—­the vices, you once had.”

“I know not what you call faults and vices, madam,” replied the earl sharply, “but I have the same qualities as heretofore.

“Am I to understand, then,” cried Amabel, a fearful suspicion of the truth breaking upon her, “that you never sincerely repented your former actions?”

“You are to understand it,” replied Rochester.

“And you deceived me when you affirmed the contrary?”

“I deceived you,” he replied.

“I begin to suspect,” she cried, with a look of horror and doubt, “that the attack of the plague was feigned.”

“You are not far wide of the truth,” was the reply.

“And our marriage?” she cried—­“our marriage?  Was that feigned likewise?”

“It was,” replied Rochester, calmly.

Amabel looked at him fixedly for a few minutes, as if she could not credit his assertion, and then receiving no contradiction, uttered a wild scream, and rushed out of the room.  Rochester followed, and saw her dart with lightning swiftness across the court-yard.  On gaining the street, he perceived her flying figure already at some distance; and greatly alarmed, started in pursuit.  The unfortunate girl was not allowed to proceed far.  Two persons who were approaching, and who proved to be Etherege and Pillichody, caught hold of her, and detained her till Rochester came up.  When the latter attempted to touch her, she uttered such fearful shrieks, that Etherege entreated him to desist.  With some difficulty she was taken back to the house.  But it was evident that the shock had unsettled her reason.  She alternately uttered wild, piercing screams, or broke into hysterical laughter.  The earl’s presence so much increased her frenzy, that he gladly withdrew.

“This is a melancholy business, my lord,” observed Etherege, as they quitted the room together, “and I am sorry for my share in it.  We have both much to answer for.”

“Do you think her life in danger?” rejoined Rochester.

“It would be well if it were so,” returned the other; “but I fear she will live to be a perpetual memento to you of the crime you have committed.”