"No," she said; "it must be now, or not at all. I am stronger than I have been for months to-day. Where was I?--Stealing back day after day to Martha's, a trampled, but not an unhoping spirit; for I still looked forward to _his_ fulfilling his promise. He once more was a visitor at our house. I did not know why--I did not care--he was there, and I was satisfied: I had no eyes for any thing else. But the blow was coming. It fell--it smote us all to dust. "I was one morning occupied alone in some domestic duty, when I heard Barnard's name pronounced by two female servants of our farm, who were employed in the next apartment. I listened--poor souls! they were merely agreeing 'how natural it was for Mr Barnard to have jilted Miss--(but let my very name be unpronounced)--and taken up with Miss Martha, who had all the fortune.' Was it not a natural remark? So natural, that every being in the country had already made it but her whose heart it broke to hear it. I rushed from the spot, a mist spreading before my eyes as I hastened on. I sought out Barnard; I found him, and alone. I told him of the report I had overheard. He said it was not new to him. I charged him with perfidy--he avowed it. Half-dreaming, I attempted to catch his hand. He coolly withdrew it. I knelt before him--I clasped his knees--I wept, and prayed he would bless me by treading me to death beneath his feet. He extricated himself with a laugh, bid me not be a fool, and left me. "Before I rose from the spot where I had fallen, a dreadful shadow passed, as it were, suddenly across me, and some black passion I had never known till then took possession of my spirit. It was JEALOUSY. I returned home, and hastened to have an interview with Martha. Hitherto I had been of a quiet, timid disposition--I was now bold from frenzy and betrayed affection. I upbraided my cousin with duplicity, with meanness in receiving the addresses of the man betrothed to her relative. She retorted by drawing comparisons between our attractions, personal as well as pecuniary. At these I smiled--bitterly perhaps, but still I smiled. She scoffed at my pleas that Barnard was my affianced husband, declared her intention of marrying him, and ended by insinuating that I had lost him by the very unguardedness of my affection. I never smiled again. "I was mad from that day forward. My whole existence changed. I was a dissembler--a liar--for my life was a long lie--and, come near--I _am_ a murderer. I lived blindly on--a day was fixed for their marriage--but, though I knew not _how it was to be_--I knew another would never stand at the altar as his bride. "She and I had apparently been reconciled--I saw Barnard no more, save in her presence--I lulled them both into a belief that I was a poor, trodden, and stingless thing.