“How strange!” continued Fitzhenry; “I should not have thought I could have been so very blind and stupid. Our sex is pretty clear-sighted where our vanity is concerned; but I suppose I was so conscious that I deserved to be hated by you, that I convinced myself I was so; and every, even the slightest occurrence, confirmed me more and more in this opinion. Perhaps too I felt (at first at least) that it was an ease to my conscience to think you disliked me, trying to persuade myself in that manner that we were quits. Pelham, when he came to Arlingford, soon saw how things were, and took me to task—he had known me long; known all my history.” Fitzhenry paused: at length, resuming in a lower, graver tone—“Emmeline! my wife!” said he, “I must ease my mind by confessing all to you. I have loved—madly loved—it was a delirium, an intoxication, an infatuation—but on my honour, before God!” and he fervently clasped his hands together—“before God, I swear it is over. My esteem, my admiration, all is now, indeed has long been, yours.” Fitzhenry had left out the word love; and Emmeline missed it. She turned away her face from her husband, but not so quick as to prevent his observing the change in her countenance; and, drawing her towards him, he (smiling) added, “And my love too.” Still Emmeline kept her eyes averted. “Listen to my story,” said Fitzhenry, “and then you will believe me. I need not tell you in what a pretty humour I was married. Good God! when I recollect the state of mind in which I was—that dreadful day—I really now wonder how I got through it all as well as I did.