“Mr. Oldfield, send the servants away; I wish to have a private conversation with you immediately.” The good clergyman complied. When they were alone, she threw back her vail, and said in an earnest, solemn voice: “Mr. Oldfield! you are a Christian minister! help me to do my duty!” “Your _duty_, Lady Montressor?” repeated the clergyman, in a perplexed, misgiving, and questioning tone. “Aye, my duty! my difficult—my dreadful duty!” “I confess I do not understand you, Lady Montressor!” “I will explain! I must withdraw myself at once and forever from Lord Montressor’s neighborhood and knowledge!” “My child, you are certainly mad!” “Would I were!—but no! listen! That first marriage of mine may not have been a _legal_ obstacle; but it is, nevertheless, an insurmountable _moral_ obstacle to my union with any other man! And oh! amid all the gloom, and terror, and desolation of my life, I do rejoice and thank God for one signal blessing! that I was arrested immediately, on leaving the church, so that I lived not one moment as a wife with Lord Montressor! and not one moment must I so live with him! I must fly while there is yet time!” “My child, my dear Estelle, you distress me beyond measure by this rash resolution.” “It is not a sudden determination! Ah no! A month ago, as soon as I recovered from the shock of my arrest and collected my scattered faculties together, I thought of it, pondered over it, prayed over it, and _decided_ upon it—long before the court had rendered judgment upon it. Had I been convicted, that conviction would have virtually released Lord Montressor. But I am acquitted, and I must by my own act release him. I ask you as a Christian minister to assist me in this duty.” “But, I am very much perplexed! You are certainly in _law_ the wife of Lord Montressor. “But not in right.” “How do you propose to release him?” “By leaving the country; he will then in time forget me.” “He never can!” “He must and will.” “And then——?” “An act of Parliament will release him from the bond of a merely nominal marriage.” The aged pastor did not reply, but sank into painful thought, broken by occasional groans. At length, Estelle resumed— “You have heard my plan—will you assist me in it?” “No, Lady Montressor, I dare not.” “Why not?” “Because I doubt it would be wrong to do so. It would be treachery on my part toward Lord Montressor, whose legal wife you are!” “Oh! would to God I were indeed his rightful wife! Oh! would to God I were! But that I am not so—that I cannot be so, while Victoire L’Orient lives, you, a Christian minister, should know full well!” cried Estelle, passionately. “Lady Montressor, I consider your conscience morbid upon this subject. Monsieur Victoire L’Orient has not the shadow of a claim to your hand. You never were his wife!” said the minister solemnly. Estelle grew paler than ever she had been before, and fixing her eyes steadily upon the face of her venerable friend, she slowly inquired—