“A lie,” she muttered, “a splendid, living lie.  Widows and orphans wronged—­the poor defrauded—­the church wounded and robbed by thee, Helen!  A husband who trusts me—­who believes me—­honorable and true himself—­confiding in a nature utterly false—­and leaning on a heart rotten to the core!  Oh, Helen! eternal loss will surely be thine—­so it is better to die ere madness comes, and divulges the dark secret.  Walter is away; he will be here at sunrise.  Better for him to find thee, Helen, calm and cold in the beauty of which he is so proud, than live to know that thou art all a lie—­which he would tear away from his honest heart, and throw to the very dogs!”

While these dark thoughts swept through the heart of the tempted and despairing one, she unlocked a secret drawer in her jewel-case, and took from it a small silver casket, which she opened.  It contained a crystal flacon, filled with a liquid, transparent, and of a pale rose-color.  “One drop of it,” she whispered, “one single drop, and without a pang, this unrest and anguish will be over.  That which is beyond cannot be worse!” Just then a strong current of air rushed in through the open window, and blew the jet of gas, in a stream of brilliance, up towards the picture of the Mater Dolorosa.  The sudden glare arrested the attention of the wretched, sin-stained one.  She looked up, and her eyes, glaring with the frenzy of evil, met the ineffably tender and sorrowful face of MARY; which, with its tears, and expression of submissive and sublime woe, its folded hands, its meek brow, seemed bowed towards her.  She paused, while, with the distinctness of a whisper, these thoughts passed through her soul.  “Wretched one, forbear!  Wound not again my Divine Son, whose body is already covered with stripes and bruises for thee.  Open not my heart again, which is already pierced for thy salvation!  Hope!  It was for such as thee that my Son, Jesus, suffered on the cross; for such as thee, that I immolated my soul, my nature, my maternal love, on that bloody altar with Him.”

“Was it the wind?  No! the sweetest winds of earth could not have drawn such language from the corrupt and frenzied chords of my spirit.  No demon whispered it!” exclaimed Helen, still gazing upwards.  “Was it a heavenly warning for me, the most miserable outcast on the wide earth?” The mad tempest was dispersed; it rolled back its sullen clouds from her soul; and, with a trembling cry for mercy, she staggered towards a large chair, into which she fell, fainting and exhausted.

As the sun was rising, Walter Jerrold, who had travelled all night from New York, whither he had been on business of importance, opened his house-door with a private key, and entered without disturbing the servants.  He ran up to Helen’s door, and finding it locked, opened his dressing-room, which adjoined hers, with the same key, and pushing back the silk draperies which hung between them, went in, and, to his alarm and amazement, saw her, still arrayed in her festal robes sleeping in the chair, into which she had fallen.  Her face was as white as the drooping roses on her bosom, and her countenance wore an expression of pain.