Lights and Shadows of London Life. 269 



enough of power to say some words to re-assure her he pressed 

 the hand, which she had grasped, with wild tenderness she felt his 

 meaning-, and continued her narrative. 



" Through all the bitter vicissitudes of my fortune one hope alone 

 supported me. You cannot know how madly I clung to it. I lived 

 alone upon the strength with which the yearning of that desire sup- 

 plied me once again to feel that I was not a castaway, I struggled 

 on with an existence that my soul turned from with unutterable 

 loathing. Chance had led me to Brighton, where began my ac- 

 quaintance with the individual with whom you found me. He repre- 

 sented himself as being under a temporary embarrassment, which he 

 urged as a cause for delaying our union. Fate seemed to pursue 

 me without pity ; I had felt that from my first appearance in Brigh- 

 ton I was constantly watched by an old man : I could hardly endure 

 his gaze, it was so intense, and its expression so mysterious. At the 

 close of the first year of my residence there, this old man called at 

 my house, and, without enquiring for me by the name under which I 

 passed, merely requested to deliver a parcel into the hands of the 

 lady herself. That parcel I received from him ; it was accompanied 

 by the same strange regard that had so often before excited my 

 surprise and inquietude. Its contents was a letter, addressed to me 

 by the name I had borne in the days of my innocence, and was super- 

 scribed, 'not to be" delivered till after my death' it was from my 

 mother ! The tale it unfolded was a brief one. No allusion was 

 made to my father I was the fruit of a connexion formed previous 

 to her marriage, to her husband I was known as the daughter of a 

 brother who had died abroad she, whom [ had believed so long to 

 have been my aunt was the sole parent of whom I have ever had know- 

 ledge. From that hour I have never seen that strange old man 

 sometimes I feel as though in former years I had met a person bear- 

 ing resemblance to him still that may be but imagination. It is 

 well for those who have never known sorrow to speak counsel to the 

 sons and daughters of grief another thing, were they so placed, for 

 them to practise what they recommend. The mariners of summer 

 seas and sunny skies little know how they would guide the bark in 

 darkness, tempest, and despair. For years, Leslie, have I lived the 

 slave of that base and selfish villain. For him I have done and suf- 

 fered more than I could tell you, and hold my scanty stock of reason. 

 My energies have failed me even as most I needed them. Upon 

 the bitterly bought relics of past years I have dragged on a life of 

 wretchedness, while he has revelled upon the soul-earned pittance. 

 To eke out what still remained, he induced me to adopt the expe- 

 dient by which you became an inmate of that house of mourning and 

 remorse my tale is said the rest you know but too well." 



It was midnight when they reached the roof which they had left 

 in the morning. What events had that division of time unfolded to 

 him who now returned beneath it ! All there was tranquil ; together 

 they entered that little parlour where Chalcroft had passed the few 

 dreamless hours of a fitful repose. To what a reality had he been 

 aroused ! '* Jane," said he, and he pressed his cold lips to her fair 

 forehead, " leave me for to-night ; I want rest ; pray for me when 



