“Then what I have heard is true!” exclaimed Cresford in a burst of uncontrollable passion. “Your virtuous sister thought I was safe in an Austrian dungeon, and she has given the loose to her profligate fancies, under the specious veil of marriage! Well done, your sanctified hypocrite! The mourning widow of Ephesus with a vengeance!” And he laughed an appalling, withering laugh, which made Henry shudder. His eyes glared with the fire of madness. Henry almost shrank with the involuntary terror from which the bravest cannot defend themselves if they suspect mental aberration in a fellow-creature. “Cresford, read this letter, and I think you will not make use of such hard expressions. Though you may be miserable, you will not be so angry.” “So, because I have loved her with mad idolatry, because my passion for her has driven me to acts of desperation,—has driven me to set at nought my life—my safety, you think I am such a besotted fool, that three lines traced by her hand, are to turn the whole current of my feelings; that she can persuade me quietly to yield her to the arms of my rival.” He paused, then added in a deep and thrilling voice, “You neither of you know me. You know not half I have gone through.” “Cresford, all I implore is that you will read my sister’s letter. We all believed you dead. The partners in the firm all believed it.” “It was their interest—it was your interest to do so,” he answered with a bitter smile. However, he took the letter. “Oh, how I have longed to see any thing belonging to her. And now—” A tear gathered in his eye. Henry augured well of that omen, and stood in silence, somewhat apart. He had leisure to remark the havoc which time and suffering, and, as he began to fear, madness, had worked in the fine features of his brother-in-law. They were sharper, his nose more prominent, his lips thinner, and more compressed. His brow low on his eye, which glanced quickly and suspiciously from beneath it. Although still young, for Cresford was not yet thirty, his hair was considerably mixed with grey. Henry watched the varying expression of his countenance as he proceeded with poor Ellen’s letter, and he sincerely commiserated the wretched man, who was now a prey to the most agonizing passions of our nature—blasted hope—indignant jealousy. When he came to the part in which she spoke of having for two years believed herself the wife of Mr. Hamilton, he stamped upon the floor, and crushing the paper in his clenched hand, Henry thought would have destroyed it, in the paroxysm of his rage. However, he proceeded, and a softer shade stole over his face when he read of her grief at making such a return for all his kindness and affection. A tear trickled down his cheek as he came to the part where she described her strict adherence to his wishes; and when she mentioned her having parted from Mr. Hamilton upon the reception of his first letter, he vehemently laid his hand on Henry’s arm.