"I will, because it is the truth. For once, Hester, you must hear another's mind; you have often told your own." "God knows why I was saved yesterday," murmured Margaret; "for a more desolate creature does not breathe." Hope leaned against the wall. Hester relieved her torment of mind with reproaches of Margaret. "You do not trust me," she cried; "it is you who make me miserable. You go to others for the comfort you ought to seek in me. You place that confidence in others which ought to be mine alone. You are cheered when you learn that the commonest gossips in Deerbrook care about you, and you set no value on your own sister's feelings for you. You have faith and charity for people out of doors, and mistrust and misconstruction for those at home. I am the injured one, Margaret, not you." "Margaret," said Hope, "your sister speaks for herself. I think that you are the injured one, as Hester herself will soon agree. So far from having anything to reproach you with, I honour your forbearance,-- unremitting till this hour,--I mourn that we cannot, if we would, console you in return. But whatever I can do shall be done. Your friendships, your pursuits, shall be protected. If we persecute your affections at home, I will take care that you are allowed their exercise abroad. Rely upon me, and do not think yourself utterly lonely while you have a brother." "I have been very selfish," said Margaret, recovering herself at the first word of kindness; "wretchedness makes me selfish, I think." She raised herself up on the sofa, and timidly held out her hand to her sister. Hester thrust it away. Margaret uttered a cry of agony, such as had never been heard from her since her childhood. Hope fell on the floor--he had fainted at the sound. Even now there was no one but Morris who understood it. Margaret reproached herself bitterly for her selfishness--for her loss of the power of self-control. Hester's remorse, however greater in degree, was of its usual kind, strong and brief. She repeated, as she had done before, that she made her husband wretched--that she should never have another happy moment--that she wished he had never seen her. For the rest of the day she was humbled, contrite, convinced that she should give way to her temper no more. Her eyes filled when her husband spoke tenderly to her, and her conduct to Margaret was one act of supplication. But a lesser degree of this same kind of penitence had produced no permanent good effect before; and there was no security that the present paroxysm would have a different result.