"There is another thing--but I need not ask it of you. You, for your own sake are concerned to keep this cruel secret that I have so long been hiding, a secret still. It passes now from my hands to yours. Perhaps I should be insensible to disgrace and ignominy; they cannot harm _him_ now: but oh! shield me from them, save his memory from shame. Do not let the world know of it till that day when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed; when God shall commit all judgment to His Son, who is more merciful than man--more compassionate and more just. "You have helped me hitherto, though I did not know whose hand was smoothing my way; do not give up now, despairing. Kitty and Stephen will be faithful, no one else need know the secrets of that dreadful room. "I am not so selfish as you think. I do not forget that you are only less miserable than I am, as you have only grief and not remorse to bear. Heaven send you the peace I have no right to ask for myself." I folded my letter quickly and sealed it; then with one more look at Kitty, and one hurried glance around the familiar room, I put out the candle, took the package from the table and stole out. Where should I put my letter? It must be within reach of no other hand than his; no one must know that I had written to him. The hall--no words can tell its gloom, the early dawn just turning its darkness into spectral dimness. If inevitable detection had been the result, I could not have helped the hurried, incautious steps with which I crossed it, and listened at Mr. Rutledge's door. Within the inner room I heard a step pacing restlessly up and down, but no other sound. He was awake, then; I stooped, and softly tried the handle of the door. It was locked; he would be the first to open it; so I slipped the letter under it, and springing up, fled down the stairs and through the hall, without a look behind, with no thought but that of escape, no fear so strong as that of detection. I had forgotten everything now but flight. It was Heaven's mercy and nothing else, as poor Kitty would have said, that no one was aroused by the loud sliding of the bolts, that required all my strength to move; I hardly stopped to pull the heavy door to, after me; I should not have heard, if the whole household had been in pursuit, for the wild throbbing of my heart, the maddening pressure on my brain, the choking fear, kept me insensible to sight and sound. I flew on, through the shrubbery, across the unfrequented, dark orchard; my feet tangled in the rank, wet grass that lay in the field beyond it, my light dress tore to fragments in the thicket that bordered the western extremity of the park; but on, till the thickest of the forest sheltered me; then sinking exhausted and panting upon the ground, I hid my eyes and shuddered at the terrors I was flying, and the dismal blank, and dread uncertainty of what was beyond. CHAPTER XXXVIII.