but little more during that evening’s visit.  Percy left her, unable to account for the deep and serious thought imprinted on her features, nor the look with which she bade him seek her the following day at an appointed hour, as she earnestly wished to speak with him alone.  The day passed heavily till he was again with her.  She was alone; and steady determination more than ever marked on her clear and polished brow.  She spoke, and Percy listened, absorbed; she alluded to his preservation of her child, and, in that moment of reawakened gratitude, all the enthusiasm of her country spoke in her eyes and voice; and then a moment she paused, and a bright and apparently painful flush mounted to those cheeks which Percy had ever seen so pale.  She implored his forbearance with her; his pardon, at what might appear an unwarrantable interference on her part in the affairs of his family; but his many and eloquent descriptions of them, particularly of his mother, had caused an interest that compelled her to reveal a fatal secret which, she had hoped, would never have passed her lips.  Was it a mere rumour, or were Lord Alphingham’s attentions marked and decided towards his sister?  Percy believed there was very good foundation for the rumours he had heard.

Did his parents approve of it? she again asked, and the flush of excitement faded.  Percy was not quite sure; he rather thought by his mother’s letters she did not, though Caroline was universally envied as an object of such profound attention from one so courted and admired.  Did his sister love him?—­the words appeared wrung with a violent effort from Mrs. Amesfort’s lips.

He did not fancy she did as yet; but he doubted not the power of Lord Alphingham’s many fascinations and exclusive devotion to herself, on one naturally rather susceptible to vanity as was Caroline.

“Oh, if you love your sister, save her ere it be too late, ere her affections are engaged,” was Mrs. Amesfort’s reply, with a burst of emotion, the more terrible, from its contrast with her general calm and unmoved demeanour.  “Expose her not to those fascinations which I know no heart can resist.  Let her not associate with him—­with my husband; he is not free to love—­I am his lawful wife; and the child you saved is his—­his own—­the offspring of lawfully-hallowed wedlock; though he has cast me off, though his eyes have never gazed upon my child, yet, yet we are his.  No cruel words of separation has the law of England spoken.  But do not, oh! if you have any regard for me,” she continued, wildly seizing both Percy’s hands, as she marked the dark blood of passion kindling on the young man’s brow, “do not betray him; do not let him know that his wife—­his injured wife—­has risen to cry shame upon him, and banish him from those circles wherein he is formed to mingle.  Promise me faithfully, solemnly, you will not betray my secret more than is necessary to preserve your sister from misery and ruin.  I thought