Part 22 (2/2)

'I could ill describe to you the state of anxiety and suspence in which his various literary efforts involved him, while he remained in London: but in about two years he returned to the country, despairing of that pleasure, profit, and faht him to consider as his due This was the period at which he once more became an usher of the school where you were educated This too was the period at whichto events in which you, without any knowledge or interference of your own, may be said to be a partaker'

She paused aardour, requested she would proceed

'The name of Wakefield must certainly be familiar to you?'

'It is: I am sorry to say it is the name my mother at present bears'

'If you feel sorrow, Mr Trevor, what s be? Mine! who, had there been truth or honour in ht to have borne that name e, should not have felt so severe a pang had a dagger been struck to my heart Mine! who frouilty moment when I confided in an unprincipled man, have never known that cheerfulness and peace, which once were the inmates of my bosom!'

'You astonish me, madam! Wakefield?'

'Wakefield! Him have I to thank for loss of self-respect, a brother's love, and perhaps a parent's life! I was my mother's companion, consolation, and pride How can I estirief? She died within a year Have I not reason to believe her days were shortened by her daughter's guilt?'

The pain of recollection was agonizing She burst into a flood of tears: nor could every effort she made keep down the deep sobs that for some minutes impeded speech I used every endeavour to appease and calm her mind: she seemed sensibly touched by that sympathy which intensely pervaded me; and, as soon as she could recover herself, thus continued

'The kind part you take in reater relief than any that perhaps I have felt for years It is true the faithful Mary, good creature, has alhter oflike expected You are a man; you perhaps have been accustomed to the society of those whose pleasure is the most exquisite when they can most contribute to the h to contes like mine: and I think we esteem benefits the more the less we expect them'

'But where, madam, did you first meet with Mr Wakefield?'

'In the city of ---- where he was bred, under his father, to the profession of the law From what I have seen of you, and fro, I should have expected you to have been the child of extraordinary parents; otherwise, I do not much wonder at your mother's conduct, superior as she was to Mr

Wakefield in years; for, of all the erous Neither man nor woman are safe with him; and his arts are such as to over-reach the most cautious He has words at will; and his wit and invention, which are extraordinary, are erade and ruin all horatify his desires, by triu, whom he contemns for their want of his own vices It was he that, after having seduced me, placed me in the family of the bishop, laid the plan that I should pass for his lordshi+p's niece, by various falsehoods cajoled me to acquiesce (the chief of which was, that the project was but to save appearances, till he could make me his wife) leftto the country, plotted the e of the weakness or vice of each character, which he seems to catch instinctively, adapted his scheain his concurrence and aid

'It was my clandestine departure at this period, and the ruain drove my brother from the country For some months neither he nor th her decline, and the extre of me more, occasioned her to prevail on my brother to advertisethe initials of ible tostate of my mother

'His plan so far succeeded as to coe I read the paper, was seized with horror at the information, and immediately wrote in answer It was too late! My mother was dead! and I left in that state of distraction to which by a single moment's weakness I had been thus fatally conducted!

'Grief, despondency, and resentment, took firm possession of my brother's mind He wrote h he forebore explicitly to accuse ht pervaded his mind After her funeral, he came up to London; but refused all intercourse with me, once excepted A few days only after that on which the bishop introduced you to me, he came, knocked at the door, inquired if I were at home, and sent up his name

'Of all the moments of my life, that was the most awful! A death-like coldness seized me! The sound of my brother's name was horror! I know not what I said to the servant, but the feelings of Mr Wil for delay: he was presently before ard, the ied in foruilt, had Ihim to be my brother

'I can tell you but little of what passed His sentences were incoherent, but half finished, and bursting with passion that was neither grief nor rage, nor reproach nor pardon, though a mixture of them all The chief impression that he left upon my mind was, that he should soon be freed from the torment of existence: not by the course of nature; he coony, that labour, disappointment, injustice, and contamination itself could not kill him; but die he would!

'From that day to this, I have never seen or heard word of him more

The deep despair hich he uttered his last resolution has kept me in a state of uninterrupted terror I daily read all the papers I can buy or borroith the excruciating dread, every paragraph I co his na an account of his death!

'My state of being seeer the same creature! My faculties, which forht slow even to stupidity, are noakened to such keenness of discernment that the world is multiplied upon ence, though of a dark and terrific hue; at other moive me a foretaste of madness, to which I have now a constant fear that I shall be driven My own deep shame, the loss of the man whom like an idiot I dearly loved, my mother's death, my brother's letter, and particularly his last visit, have altogether given such an ihts as I want the power to repel Whither they will hurry ine the earth contains nothing but evil! At another, strange to tell! all is good!

all is wise! all har happiness under so perfect a system!

'Nay, there are tiuilty of no cri as crime! and that the distinctions of norance!