The clock struck five, and I put on my bonnet and my cloak. The light was faintly dawning. I opened with a trembling hand the door of the adjoining room, and unclosed the shutters, to look once and for the last time on Edward's full-length picture. The light was so faint, and my swelled and burning eyes were so dim, that I could hardly discern its features, and I saw nothing before me but the vision of that dreadful moment when I last beheld him, I knelt before it, and breathed a prayer for _him_, which will be heard at the throne of Grace, if prayers can avail from the lips of those who cannot, and dare not, pray for themselves. A noise in the room above my head startled and hurried me. I took up the portmanteau in my room, and carried it with difficulty down the stairs; I reached the hall door, and pushed it open--I closed it behind me; and, if ever there was a pang which baffles description--if ever there was an act which resembles suicide, in all but the apparent suspension of agony which death seems to yield, it was mine, when I closed that door; and, with a weakened frame, an aching head, and a broken heart, dragged myself with difficulty along the street, and stood shivering and burning at once, to wait till the first hackney-coach appeared on the stand. I called one, and drove to the place from which I had seen that the stage-coaches set off. I saw the name of--on one of them, and secured a place. An hour afterwards we started; and, as I drove out of London, it was snowing hard. After a few hours' travelling, the burning fever which had supported me, subsided: and the horrible solitude of the future appalled me. Nothing like a hope before me--nothing but the cold chill of despair in my heart--nothing but strange voices and faces about me. A dark, heavy, speechless grief weighed like lead on my soul, but wrought like fire in my brain. * * * * * * * * * * * * Late that night I reached this place. * * * * * * * * * * * * From that moment to this, a night of horror has gathered around me. No tidings have reached, no enemy has pursued, no friend has discovered me. I am alone, and I am dying. I watch day by day the progress of the disease which is killing mc. In reckless despair I accelerate its progress; and then I tremble and shudder at the approach of death. I drag myself to the cathedral, and in its awful silence, or in the low chaunting of the choir, I find a soothing power, which acts at times as a spell over the dark visions and secret terrors of my soul. But I cannot pray when others pray. My brain is confused, and my spirit weary. I cannot kneel in mockery before God, while my soul rebels against Him. The voices of the dead and of the dying mingle with the rise and fall of the organ. Sometimes a note vibrates on my ear like a death-cry--the sound of rushing waters besets me--the curse of Cain follows me, and his words of complaint are ever upon my lips--"My punishment is greater than I can bear!"