“Shall I write to Mrs. Carlyle?” rejoined Mrs. Latimer.

Lady Isabel roused herself, and so far cleared her intellect as to understand and answer the question.  “Perhaps you would kindly give me until to-morrow morning to consider on it?  I had not intended to take a situation in England.”

A battle she had with herself that day.  At one moment it seemed to her that Providence must have placed this opportunity in her way that she might see her children, in her desperate longing; at another, a voice appeared to whisper that it was a wily, dangerous temptation flung across her path, one which it was her duty to resist and flee from.  Then came another phase of the picture—­how should she bear to see Mr. Carlyle the husband of another—­to live in the same house with them, to witness his attentions, possibly his caresses?  It might be difficult; but she could force and school her heart to endurance.  Had she not resolved, in her first bitter repentance, to take up her cross daily, and bear it?  No, her own feelings, let them be wrung as they would, should not prove the obstacle.

Evening came, and she had not decided.  She passed another night of pain, of restlessness, of longing for her children; this intense longing appeared to be overmastering all her powers of mind and body.  The temptation at length proved too strong; the project having been placed before her covetous eyes could not be relinquished, and she finally consented to go.  “What is it that would keep me away?” she argued.  “The dread of discovery?  Well if that comes it must; they could not hang me or kill me.  Deeper humiliation than ever would be my portion when they drive me from East Lynne with abhorrence and ignominy, as a soldier is drummed out of his regiment; but I could bear that as I must bear the rest and I can shrink under the hedge and lay myself down to die.  Humiliation for me?  No; I will not put that in comparison with seeing and being with my children.”

Mrs. Latimer wrote to Mrs. Carlyle.  She had met with a governess; one desirable in every way who could not fail to suit her views precisely.  She was a Madame Vine, English by birth, but the widow of a Frenchman; a Protestant, a thorough gentlewoman, an efficient linguist and musician, and competent to her duties in all ways.  Mrs. Crosby, with whom she had lived two years regarded her as a treasure, and would not have parted with her but for Helena’s marriage with a German nobleman.  “You must not mind her appearance,” went on the letter.  “She is the oddest-looking person; wears spectacles, caps, enormous bonnets, and has a great scar on her mouth and chin; and though she can’t be more than thirty, her hair is gray; she is also slightly lame.  But, understand you, she is a lady, with it all, and looks one.”

When this description reached East Lynne, Barbara laughed at it as she read it aloud to Mr. Carlyle.  He laughed also.

“It is well governesses are not chosen according to their looks,” he said, “or I fear Madame Vine would stand but a poor chance.”