"We have with us Doctor Bairam, and a French physician from Dieppe, a very skilful man. It was he who told us where the real danger lay. We thought all would be well. A week had passed, and no fever supervened. We told Richard that his wife was coming to him, and he could bear to hear it. I went to her and began to circumlocute, thinking she listened --she had the same eager look. When I told her she might go in with me to see her dear husband, her features did not change. M. Despres, who held her pulse at the time, told me, in a whisper, it was cerebral fever --brain fever coming on. We have talked of her since. I noticed that though she did not seem to understand me, her bosom heaved, and she appeared to be trying to repress it, and choke something. I am sure now, from what I know of her character, that she--even in the approaches of delirium--was preventing herself from crying out. Her last hold of reason was a thought for Richard. It was against a creature like this that we plotted! I have the comfort of knowing that I did my share in helping to destroy her. Had she seen her husband a day or two before-- but no! there was a new System to interdict that! Or had she not so violently controlled her nature as she did, I believe she might have been saved. "He said once of a man, that his conscience was a coxcomb. Will you believe that when he saw his son's wife--poor victim! lying delirious, he could not even then see his error. You said he wished to take Providence out of God's hands. His mad self-deceit would not leave him. I am positive, that while he was standing over her, he was blaming her for not having considered the child. Indeed he made a remark to me that it was unfortunate 'disastrous,' I think he said--that the child should have to be fed by hand. I dare say it is. All I pray is that this young child may be saved from him. I cannot bear to see him look on it. He does not spare himself bodily fatigue--but what is that? that is the vulgarest form of love. I know what you will say. You will say I have lost all charity, and I have. But I should not feel so, Austin, if I could be quite sure that he is an altered man even now the blow has struck him. He is reserved and simple in his speech, and his grief is evident, but I have doubts. He heard her while she was senseless call him cruel and harsh, and cry that she had suffered, and I saw then his mouth contract as if he had been touched. Perhaps, when he thinks, his mind will be clearer, but what he has done cannot be undone. I do not imagine he will abuse women any more. The doctor called her a 'forte et belle jeune femme:' and he said she was as noble a soul as ever God moulded clay upon. A noble soul 'forte et belle!' She lies upstairs. If he can look on her and not see his sin, I almost fear God will never enlighten him."