“Aunt Emmeline, Aunt Emmeline, speak to me but one word—­only one word of kindness before you go.  I do not ask for mercy—­there can be none for such a wretch as I am; I will bear without one complaint, one murmur, all you may inflict—­you cannot be too severe.  Nothing can be such agony as the utter loss of your affection; I thought, the last two months, that I feared you so much that it was all fear, no love:  but now, now that you know my sin, it has all, all come back to make me still more wretched.”  And before Mrs. Hamilton could prevent, or was in the least aware of her intention, Ellen had obtained possession of one of her hands, and was covering it with kisses, while her whole frame shook with those convulsed, but completely tearless sobs.

“Will you confess, Ellen, if I stay?  Will you give me the proof that it is such agony to lose my affection, that you do love me as you profess, and that it is only one sin which has so changed you?  One word, and, tardy as it is, I will listen, and it I can, forgive.”

Ellen made no answer, and Mrs. Hamilton’s newly raised hopes vanished; she waited full two or three minutes, then gently disengaged her hand and dress from Ellen’s still convulsive grasp; the door closed, with a sullen, seemingly unwilling sound, and Ellen was alone.  She remained in the same posture, the same spot, till a vague, cold terror so took possession of her, that the room seemed filled with ghostly shapes, and all the articles of furniture suddenly transformed to things of life; and springing up, with the wild, fleet step of fear, she paused not till she found herself in her own room, where, flinging herself on her bed, she buried her face on her pillow, to shut out every object—­oh, how she longed to shut out thought!

WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH

(1805-1882)

In the year 1881, at a commemorative dinner given to her native novelist by the city of Manchester, it was announced that the public library contained two hundred and fifty volumes of his works, which passed through seven thousand six hundred and sixty hands annually, so that his stories were read at the rate of twenty volumes a day throughout the year.  This exceptional prophet, who was thus not without honor in his own country, was the son of a prosperous attorney, and was himself destined to the bar.  But he detested the law and he loved letters, and before he was twenty he had helped to edit a paper, had written essays, a story, and a play,—­none of which, fortunately for him, survive,—­and had gone to London, ostensibly to read in a lawyer’s office, and really to spin his web of fiction whenever opportunity offered.  Chance connected the fortunes of young Ainsworth with periodical literature, where most of his early work appeared.  His first important tale was ‘Rookwood,’ published in 1834.  This describes the fortunes of a family of Yorkshire gentry in the last century; but its real interest lies in an episode which includes certain experiences of the notorious highwayman, Dick Turpin, and his furious ride to outrun the hue and cry.  Sporting England was enraptured with the dash and breathlessness of this adventure, and the novelist’s fame was established.