that the will was missing, the temptations which had led her so deeply
into sin would become demons of vengeance to torture and disturb her.
As she went up with a heavy step to her room, an angel whisper
suggested that there was time enough yet to undo the wrong she had
committed. It startled and agitated her. "Can I bear these chains?"
was the question. Weak, but never hardened in wickedness, she
trembled, and was afraid of the penalties of her offence; and when she
looked up, and saw by the flickering candlelight the image of the
CRUCIFIED, and the sorrowful face of his Virgin Mother, both bending on
her looks of tenderness and woe, which said, as plain as looks could
say, "Child of my passion! soul, ransomed by my death! why wound me so
deeply?" With a low cry, she threw herself on her pillow. "I shall
never know peace again," her heart whispered; "I already feel the
anguish of guilt; I begin to taste on earth the pangs of ever-lasting
woe. This sin, with the human shame it will bring, will be an abyss
between me and the Sacraments of the Church. Where shall I turn for
peace? I can never bear this burden; it will madden me. I feel even
now so guilty that I dare not lift my eyes to Walter's, for whose sake
I do it. I feel an awe and dread steal over me when May comes near me
as if she had Ithuriel's spear with which to touch me. I will do it,"
she said, with sudden resolution, and got up, and opened her trunk with
the almost determined purpose of restoring the will to the place from
which she had taken it. But oh, human frailty! the light falling on an
open case of rare jewels, and some costly articles of her bridal
trousseau, met her eye; then followed visions of splendor--of such
power as wealth gives--of equipages and luxury, which swept away, like
ocean-tides, the thoughts which her angel-guardian had written on her
conscience. Hesitating no longer, a smile of triumph lit her face, and
crowning the spectre with roses, and wrapping a drapery of pale
illusions around it, she offered herself to a martyrdom of sin, to