A flood of tender and self-reproachful feelings rushed over her soul. Fanny’s grief cut her to the heart; she gazed upon her till she felt herself cruel and odious. She pictured to herself what sufferings she must have inflicted upon her during the days of her courtship, on her wedding-day, on a thousand other occasions; she remembered her unfailing, uncomplaining gentleness; she thought of the good advice she had given her at various times, and felt how generous and how judicious it had been. Seating herself by her side, she gently lifted her head from the sofa—she kissed her—she wept with her—she used every tender and endearing epithet—she implored her to be comforted. “I am weeping for my own degradation,” she replied, “that the secret I scarcely dared own to myself should be uttered in positive words, and to you, to his wife!—and you will betray me to him, you will tell him, I am sure you will. Oh! that I should have come to this!—I, who hoped to have passed through life with a fair, untarnished name, though my wretched heart might break! Oh, Isabella! in pity keep my secret—spare me this last bitter drop in the cup of life! He respects me now, and I think it would kill me to be despised by him.” Her broken voice was choked by sobs—she again hid her face in her hands—she seemed to shrink into herself. “Dearest Fanny! what shall I say, what shall I do? If you knew how your anguish harrows my very soul! I will promise any thing, I will do any thing that can relieve your mind.” “Will you indeed do any thing that I ask?” said Fanny, looking up from her tears with a face in which beamed a high and lofty hope: “Then, all I ask of you is, to be happy: and to be truly so, you must place all your happiness in him; you must let no other feelings interfere with what is conducive to his welfare, his respectability. Promise this, Isabella, and I ask no more.” “I promise you, dearest Fanny!” and, kneeling at her feet, her hands clasped and laid on Fanny’s knees, Isabella solemnly repeated, “I promise you that, for your sake, as well as for his own, I will love, cherish, and obey him, in sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow, in poverty or in wealth: I will strive to be unto him a loving, dutiful, and virtuous wife.” “Thank you, my own Isabella!” exclaimed Fanny, and, throwing themselves into each other’s arms, they mingled tears and embraces. At length Fanny added, “It is a weight off my mind that I have no longer anything concealed from you, Isabella; and if I could but feel sure that you, and you only, should know my weakness——” “Shall I promise?” “Do, dearest Isabella; let me hear a vow of secrecy pass your lips, and I think it will go farther towards eradicating every vestige of former folly than anything else can do.” “I promise you that no one word of this day’s conversation shall pass my lips; and I promise that, except by my future conduct, you shall never be reminded of it. Will that satisfy you?”