"Leave me, wretch!" exclaimed Henrietta in a voice that made Rosalind tremble. "He may lock me up and half-starve me, for he has done it before to make me obey his will, and I have obeyed it, and hated myself for my cowardice; but I will not marry you, Mr. Hetherington, even should he treat me worse than he has yet done--which would not be easy. Go, sir, go--I am an Atheist; but horrible as that sounds even to my own ears, it is better than to be what you have proved yourself." Rosalind, hardly less agitated than Henrietta appeared to be, stood trembling from head to foot in her retreat, till aware that the unscrupulous Mr. Hetherington had retreated in one direction, and the unhappy Henrietta returned to the house by another. CHAPTER VI. A SECOND VISIT TO THE LIME-TREE. Rosalind, as she walked slowly back towards the house, repeated to herself in shuddering the fearful words of Henrietta Cartwright--I AM AN ATHEIST,--and her very soul seemed sick and faint within her. She had sought in some degree the friendship of this unhappy girl, chiefly because it was evident that not even the connexion of father and daughter had sufficed to blind her to the hateful hypocrisy and unholy fanaticism of the vicar. Did, then, hatred and contempt for him lead to the hideous abyss of Atheism? She trembled as she asked herself the question; but the weakness lasted not a moment: the simple and true piety of her spirit awoke within her, and with kindly warmth cheered and revived her heart. That the unhappy Henrietta, when revolted by watching the false religion of her father, should have fled from it with such passionate vehemence as to plunge her into the extreme of scepticism, offered no precedent for what would be likely to befall a person who, like her, loathed the dark sin of hypocrisy, but who, unlike her, had learned the benignant truths of religion with no false and frightful commentaries to disfigure them. As she remembered this--as she remembered that, probably, the only religious lessons ever given to this most unhappy girl were such as her judgment must revolt from, and the sincerity of her nature detest as false and feigned, pity and compassion took place of terror and repugnance, and a timid, but most earnest wish, that she might herself be the means of sending a ray of divine light to cheer the fearful gloom of poor Henrietta's mind, took possession of her heart.