It is not mine to palliate, much less to justify her conduct. I have but to relate a too true tale; and in relating it, to show, in so far as I can, the mental operations, the self-deceptions, and the workings of passion—from which not even the best and purest of mankind are exempt—by which an innocent and wonderfully constituted creature was betrayed into one fatal error. She was persuaded—words can tell no more! It was a grievous fault, and grievously _Theresa_ answered it. When ill things are devised, and to be done, ill agents are soon found, especially by the young, the wealthy, and the powerful. The declining health of Sir Miles St. Aubyn was no secret in the neighborhood—the near approach of his death was already a matter of speculation; and already men almost looked on Jasper as the Lord, _in esse_, of the estates of Widecomb Manor. The old white-headed vicar had a son, poor like himself, and unaspiring—like himself, in holy orders; and for him, when his own humble career should be ended, he hoped the reversion of the vicarage, which was in the gift of the proprietor of Widecomb. The old man had known Jasper from his boyhood, had loved Theresa, whom he had, indeed, baptized, from her cradle. He was very old and infirm, and some believed that his intellect was failing. Between his affection for the parties, and his interest in his son’s welfare, it was easy to frame a plausible tale, which should work him to Jasper’s will; and with even less difficulty than the boy looked for, he was prevailed upon to unite them secretly, and at the dead of night, in the parish church at the small village by the fords. The sexton of the parish church was a low knave, with no thought beyond his own interest, no wish but for the accumulation of gain. A gamekeeper, devoted to the young master’s worst desires, a fellow who had long ministered to his most evil habits, and had in no small degree assisted to render him what he was, only too willingly consented to aid in an affair which he saw clearly would put the young heir in his power forever. He was selected as one of the witnesses—for without witnesses, the good but weak old vicar would not perform the ceremony; and he promised to bring a second, in the person of his aged and doting mother, the respectability of whose appearance should do away with any scruples of Theresa’s, while her infirmity should render her a safe depository of the most dangerous secret. And why all this mystery—this tortuous and base deviation from the path of right—this unnecessary concealment, and unmeaning deceit?