My whole youth was a succession of inconsiderate yieldings to passion, and of hasty visitings of remorse. It is not a matter of surprise that I hated myself for every word that I had spoken as soon as I was again master of my conduct. It was my nature to fall into error against conviction and my cool reason, and to experience speedily the reaction that succeeds the commission of exorbitant crimes. In proportion to the facility with which I erred, was the extravagance and exaggeration with which I viewed my faults. During the predominance of a passion, death, surrounded by its terrors, would not have frighted me or driven me back--would not have received my passing notice; whilst it lasted it prevailed. So, afterwards, when all was calm and over, a crushing sense of wrong and guilt magnified the smallest offence, until it grew into a bugbear to scare me night and day. Leaving Miss Fairman, I rushed into the garden, preparatory to running away from the parsonage altogether. This, in the height of remorseful excitement, presented itself to my mind forcibly as the necessary and only available step to adopt; but this soon came to be regarded as open to numerous and powerful objections. It seemed impossible that the incumbent could be kept any longer in ignorance of the affair; and it was better--oh! how much better--for comfort and peace of mind that he should not be. In a few hours Dr. Mayhew would arrive, and his shrewd eye would immediately penetrate to the very seat of his patient's disquietude. The discovery would be communicated to her father--and what would he think of me?--what would become of me? I grew as agitated as though the doctor were at that moment seated with the minister--and revealing to his astounded listener the history of my deceit and black ingratitude. The feeling was not to be borne; and in order to cast it off, I determined myself to be the messenger of the tale, and to stand the brunt of his first surprise and indignation. With the earliest conception of the idea, I ran to put it into execution. Nor did I stop until I reached the door of his study, when the difficulty of introducing at once so delicate a business, and the importance of a little quiet preparation, suggested themselves, and made me hesitate. It was however, but for a moment for self-possession. I would argue with myself no longer. The few hours that intervened before the arrival of the doctor were my own and if I permitted them to pass away, my opportunity was gone for ever, and every claim upon the kindness and forgiveness of my patron lost. I would confess my affection, and offer him the only reparation in my power--to quit his roof, and carry the passion with me for my punishment and torment.