None sufficiently consider, when they describe the hateful picture of crime, how every step taken in its mazy road, perverts, and petrifies the feeling. Calantha, in long retrospect over her former life, thought only of the neglect and severity of him she had abandoned. She dwelt with pleasure upon the remembrance of every momentary act of violence, and thought of his gaiety and merriment, as of a sure testimony that he was not injured by her ill conduct. “He left me first,” she said. “He loves me not; he is happy; I alone suffer.” And the consolation she derived from such reflections steeled her against every kindlier sentiment. Lord Avondale returned. There was no look of joy in his countenance—no radiant heartfelt smile which bounding spirits and youthful ardour once had raised. His hollow eye betokened deep anxiety; his wasted form, the suffering he had endured. Oh, can it be said that the greatest pang to a heart, not yet entirely hardened, is unsuspicious confidence? Oh, can the momentary selfish pang a cold dissembling hypocrite may feel, be compared to the unutterable agony of such a meeting? Conscience itself must shrink beneath the torture of every glance. There is the record of crime—there, in every altered lineament of that well known face. How pale the withered cheek—how faint the smile that tries to make light and conceal the evil under which the soul is writhing. And could Calantha see it, and yet live? Could she behold him kind, compassionating, mournful, and yet survive it? No—no frenzy of despair, no racking pains of ill requited love, no, not all that sentiment and romance can paint or fancy, were ever equal to that moment. Before severity, she had not bowed—before contempt, she had not shed one tear—against every menace, she felt hardened; but, in the presence of that pale and altered brow, she sunk at once. With grave but gentle earnestness, he raised her from the earth. She durst not look upon him. She could not stand the reproachful glances of that eye, that dark eye which sometimes softened into love, then flamed again into the fire of resentment. She knelt not for mercy: she prayed not for pardon: a gloomy pride supported her; and the dark frown that lowered over his features was answered by the calm of fixed despair.