"Oh, sir! bear it like a man," she cried, weeping bitterly;--"do bear it like a man, sir! That I should live to tell you this!--I, who have carried you in these arms, and have prayed a thousand times for your happiness when I should be dead and gone!" She paused. Perhaps my face revealed the sickness of heart which at that moment overcame me. I could not rise from my seat; I could not lift the child from my knee, as he lay upon my bosom with his head pressed against my heart. "Merciful Heaven!--Isabella is ill--she is dying!--at once, at once tell me----" "No, no," said the woman bitterly, "she is not ill or dying. Mr. Saville, I durst not tell you my suspicions before you left town--I durst not, sir. For mercy's sake compose yourself! My mistress left this house last Tuesday night with Mr. Hastings." That horrible shriek still rings in my ears. I remember thrusting the child from me, and clasping my head with my hands; and then I was smitten down--struck to the earth--worse than dead--oh, how much worse than dead! It was a long, long, hideous dream that succeeded, full of woe, and lamentations, and weeping, and curses, and despair. But I awoke at last from that dream. Where was I? It was a very narrow, but lofty room; the walls were whitewashed, and there was one small window about twelve feet from the door. I was seated on a low truckle-bed; and as I turned my eyes from the light of the window, they fell upon my hands, which were laid before me. Around my wrists there were deep marks, as though they had been tied together with cords; and when I moved, a sharp pain went round me, like a girdle. But the rope had been loosened, and was no longer about me. A man entered the room. "How do you feel yourself now?" said he, laying his hand upon my shoulder. I looked up. Methought I recognised the voice, and the face was almost familiar to me, and repulsively so. "I am well--very well," I answered. "Where am I?" The man said nothing, but silently left the room, presently returning with a gentleman, of whom, as of the man, I had an indistinct remembrance. "You will be better soon, sir," said this person kindly, as he felt my pulse; and he turned towards the man, and spoke to him in an undertone. "Let him he kept very quiet," was all I heard, and he retired shortly after. Yes:--I had been mad--raving mad--for two years, and was now slowly struggling back into consciousness. Feeble glimmerings of the past came upon me at first, and then farther half-revelations were extended to me; until at length _the cause_, dimly and remotely, but gradually nearer and more near, stood before me like a curse. It is well for me that I did not then relapse into madness; but I wrestled with it, I overcame it, and in a month was taken away in my own physician's carriage, and brought back home. Home?--that had been destroyed.