the loathsome story betrayed in her phrensied remorse struck distinctly on my ear. How the snake had glided nearer to her every day, fascinating her imagination by his brilliancy, stealing into her bosom by his sweet tenderness, lulling her fears and disarming her resistance by his gentle mesmerism, winding coil after coil of his serpent fold around her, and delaying until the last hour—the tender parting hour, the safe hour of sorrowful, tearful adieux, and non-resistance—the _unguarded_ hour, to strike his venomed fangs deep in her heart! How sudden was her fall—how quick her recovery! How terrible her remorse! And I, Sophie! _I!_—I said that earth and hell swam together in my reason! I felt a rushing and roaring in my head and ears like the coming of many waters; the earth rocked under my feet, and I thought the end of all things was at hand. I suppose I fell. **** The next link in memory was a slow, feeble returning to consciousness—more like a weak babe’s first coming into existence than like a man’s revival. The first glimmering of sensibility found me extended prostrated on my bed, unable to lift or turn; aye, even to _move_ a limb. The only fluttering life seeming to linger in my languid eyes, and in the weak breath hovering in my bosom and on my lips like a soul ready for flight. A dreary, dreary weight that I could then neither understand, nor throw off, lay heavy on my soul. A sorrowful, shadowy face, like a dream of Fanny, floated past my vision. It was the face of Raymond, my son, my constant attendant. Too slowly dawned reason and memory on the night of my intellect to endanger a shock and a relapse. Day by day, and hour by hour, I picked up and restrung the broken and scattered links in the chain of circumstances; and in a few days, before my physical powers were recovered sufficiently to allow me to speak a consecutive sentence, or utter a word above my breath, I understood the height and depth—the full extent of my ruin. But _she_! where was _she_? I saw nothing of her—heard nothing of her. For many days I dared not inquire. At last one day when Raymond was sitting by me with his shame-bowed head leaned upon his hands, my anxiety, by intense thought of her, had become insupportable. “‘Raymond!’ said I. He looked up sorrowfully. “‘Where is your mother, my boy?’ “‘Gone!’ “‘How!’ “‘Fled!’ “‘When?’ “‘Upon the night of your attack.’ “‘Where? with whom?’ “‘We do not know.’ “‘Has any one pursued her?’ “‘No, sir.’ “‘Why did not you follow her—seek, save her?’ “‘My duty was by your bedside, my father?’ “‘Raymond! tell me! how far is this dreadful tragedy known—how far has her frantic remorse, _my_ phrensied despair exposed us?’