It is not ours to lift the vail from that brief interval. We must have performed our task badly indeed, if our readers can not so enter into the lofty character, the inward strivings and outward conduct of Mrs. Hamilton, as not to imagine more satisfactorily to themselves than we could write it, the heart-crushing agony of that one half hour; and anguish as it was, it did but herald deeper. There was not even partial escape for her, as there would have been had her husband been at home. Examination of the culprit, whose mysterious conduct was so fatally explained, that she did not even dare hope this was the only missing note she had appropriated--compelled confession of the use to which it had been applied--public acknowledgment of Robert's perfect truth and innocence, all crowded on her mind like fearful specters of pain and misery, from which there could be no escape; and from whom did they spring? Ellen! the child of her adoption, of her love, whose character she had so tried to mold to good--whose young life she had so sought to make happier than its earliest years--for whom she had so hoped, so prayed--so trusted--had borne with anxiety and care; tended in physical suffering with such untiring gentleness, such exhaustless love: and now! CHAPTER V. THE CULPRIT AND THE JUDGE. It was nearly seven when the young party returned, delighted as usual with their afternoon's amusement; and Percy, shouting loudly for his mother, giving vent to an exclamation of impatience at finding she was still invisible. "I shall wish Morris and all his concerns at the bottom of the Dart, if he is so to engross my mother when I want her," he said, as he flung himself full length on a couch in the music-room, desiring Emmeline to make haste and disrobe, as he must have an air on the harp to soothe his troubled spirit. Herbert, to look for a poem, the beauty of which he had been discussing with Miss Harcourt during their sail, entered the library, but perceiving his mother, would have retreated, thinking her still engaged; but she looked up as the door opened, and perceiving him, smiled, and asked him if they had had a pleasant afternoon. He looked at her earnestly, without making any reply; then approaching her, took one of her hands in his, and said, fondly-- "Forgive me, dearest mother; I ought not, perhaps, to ask, but I am sure something is wrong. You are ill--anxious--may I not share it? Can I do nothing?"