"Nay," answered the lady, with an arch smile, "so far as Elizabeth is concerned, I think the witch that most troubles her is Jealousy. Indeed, indeed I do! It is the dark-browed beauty, who says so little, that seems most deeply affected. Yet she exonerates this woman entirely. As for Lovel, he is generous and good to every one: impetuous in his likings, he is always indignant if he suspects oppression or injustice. Had this Barbara Stafford come among us without mystery, and been left unnoticed, he would have cared little about her." Sir William looked at his wife thoughtfully while she was speaking, and a deeper shade came over his face. She was so frank, so sweetly generous, that he felt conscience-stricken at having given these trivial reasons for withholding mercy from Barbara Stafford while those, so much deeper and more potent, lay buried in his own bosom. He took her two hands between his, and pressed them with nervous energy. "My wife, bear with me--neither give way to anger nor fear--and I will tell you why it is impossible that this woman can receive a pardon at my hands. Even as it has enthralled the souls of these young persons, her wonderful power has bewitched your husband. Since that hour when she stood near me at the altar, and the night when she lay for one moment against my heart, I have had no rest. Nay, sweet wife, do not turn pale, or draw these hands from mine. What power there is in mortal man to resist the evil one I have striven for, but in vain. Absent or present this woman is forever in my mind, standing, as it were, like the ghost of some buried love between us two." Lady Phipps gave a sharp cry, and wresting her hands from his grasp buried her face in them. "Between us two? Alas! alas! I felt this but would not believe it." "Nay, sweetheart, be calm. Is your husband a man to yield up his love, or his integrity, to the evil one, come in what form he may? Of my own free will I have never looked upon this woman, or spoken to her but once in my life." "I know it, I know it," moaned the unhappy lady. "But she is always here," continued Sir William, laying a hand on his heart. "She haunts me. I cannot drive her image away. Sleeping and waking I am shadow-haunted." Lady Phipps gazed on her husband in pale dismay. At last she cried out--"Oh, my God! my God! help him--help me, for he loves this woman." "Be calm, and let me tell every thing. In this matter I would not have a single reservation. What I say will give you pain, but my conscience must clear itself. Since I first saw this woman, something that I cannot describe--a feeling so intangible that it is in vain I strive to grasp it--divides me from--it is hard to speak, and I would rather perish than wound you, my wife--but it seems to point out my union with you as a--a--I cannot utter it. God help us both! This witch in her prison poisons my heart with feelings that I can neither repel nor describe. Either she or I must perish before my soul is free again."