“That ride home! How distinctly, how indelibly is every circumstance attending it imprinted on my memory! That ride home through the dark, cool woods, with the moonlight shimmering down through the leaves, with the merry chirp of insects in the trees, with the fresh dew on the grass; with my heart warmer, lighter, gladder, than it had been for years; nothing, nothing to warn me of the ruin before me! I was, except the stirring of a new and glad emotion, as calm as Pompeii under the shadow of Vesuvius. I passed through the iron gate in front of our house—it swung to with a loud clang behind me. To this day the clang of a gate sends a pang to my heart. I passed up the gravel walk between rows of violets whose fragrance filled the air. I recollect it so distinctly. To this hour the smell of violets makes me ill. I jumped from my horse, and throwing the bridle to a servant who came to take it, I hastened up the marble stairs, and into the house. The lamps were not lighted. ‘She is enjoying the moonlight of this cool hour,’ I said, and I passed into the parlor. The moon was shining through the two large front windows shaded with foliage, and shining in two bright square patches, variegated with the black shadows of the leaves on the carpet; and the leaves in the window and their shadows on the floor trembled in the rising breeze. At first I thought the room was vacant, but looking around, I presently discerned the form of Fanny on a sofa in the back of the room. She lay partly on the floor, partly on the sofa. Her dress disordered, her hair dishevelled, her face down, her arms thrown over her head in an attitude of the uttermost despair—of the last abandonment. Surprised, I approached her, thinking her sick, or perhaps sleeping. I spoke to her—she did not reply. I stooped, raised, and kissed her. _Then_ she bounded like a shot from under my embrace, and sank cowering in a distant part of the room. Wondering, I followed her, but she raised, turned away her head, grinding her face into the corner, while she threw up both arms towards me in a frantic, abjuring gesture! I now really fancied that in the dubious light, I had mistaken some one _else_ for Fanny; that this could not be she, but was probably some poor mad stroller. I hastened into the hall and called for lights. They were brought, set upon the mantel-piece, and the servant retired. I turned towards her. God! what a thing met my view! Ashy pale, with a wild blaze in her blue eyes, haggard and shuddering, she cowered in the corner, her hands clasping her head, her gaze riveted in phrensied despair upon me! I spoke to her, but she changed not her attitude. I caressed her, and she broke forth in raving madness. God! oh God! Sophie, how can I describe to you the grief, horror, _distraction_, with which I gathered from her raving, the shameful story of _her_ fall and of my dishonor! Though earth and hell swam together in my reeling reason, every fact of