“The malady is _not_ hereditary; no member of the family was ever known to have lost his or her reason; severe domestic affliction—trials, oh! trials that would have—that might have riven the strongest, firmest heart in two, that might have shaken into chaos the best regulated mind, clouded the clearest reason. Listen, Miss Churchill. Mr. Withers, my father, was morbidly proud, his pride was brought to the dust; he was delicately sensitive; he was stricken to the heart; his health gave way; his reason failed. With the strange cunning of a lunatic, and under the favor of circumstances, he has succeeded in concealing this malady from the world. In his first one or two attacks, _I_ was his keeper by chance; _after_ the first two or three, he learned by the premonitory symptoms when to seclude himself; and so, no symptom, no effect of his malady has yet appeared but this: the burning eloquence, the super-human power of intellect revealed in his occasional sermons; and, as long as it properly could be kept, in fact up to this moment, I have kept his secret; believing that if he knew it to be revealed, his proud and sensitive nature would be so shocked and wounded that the last light of reason would go out; that he would become a raving maniac. But, Miss Churchill, when I saw another person, a young girl, about to be sacrificed to him (for my father wrote to me, at college, of his approaching marriage, not deeming that I would interfere), I deemed it my duty to reveal his secret, at least, to his affianced bride. Now, Miss Churchill, you have your own fate and _his_ in your power; reveal his secret, save yourself. No one in the world could blame you for separating yourself from him.” Sophie remained with her hand pressed upon her brow, so still she might have been taken for a statue. “I am ready Miss Churchill, to aid your release by my testimony. Your marriage can be dissolved in a few days, by legislative action; do not be cast down.” “Oh! stop, hush!” said Sophie, “let me think—let me think. My God! help thy child!” She pressed her hand upon her brow tightly, then she spoke. “Say! you think the revelation of this secret would affect him very seriously?” “It would destroy his reason utterly, irrevocably, I think.” “You say that this malady is accidental, circumstantial, and not hereditary?” “Entirely—entirely the result of overwhelming affliction.” Sophie sighed deeply; “It is hard to ask a son to criminate his father; yet _justice_—tell me, were these afflictions brought about by _his sin_? The youth paused, looked down, groaned heavily, and at last hesitatingly replied;— “No; not by _his sin_; that were too harsh a term; by his error, or rather his _mistake_.” Sophie sighed more heavily than before, then she said— “Young man, you are the son of Fanny Raymond; who _was_ Fanny Raymond, your mother?” “She was the wife of Mr. Withers, of course.” “When did she die, and where, and under what circumstances?”