atonement (atonement! alas! what atonement!) whenever the time arrived
that _her_ cause would not be prejudiced, or the current of public
feeling made to turn in his favor by investing him with the semblance
of an injured or suffering person. So much was settled in my thoughts
with the stern serenity of a decree issuing from a judgment-seat. But
that gave no relief, no shadow of relief, to the misery which was now
consuming me. Here was an end, in one hour, to the happiness of a life.
In one hour it had given way, root and branch--had melted like so much
frost-work, or a pageant of vapory exhalations. In a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye, and yet for ever and ever, I comprehended the
total ruin of my situation. The case, as others might think, was yet in
suspense; and there was room enough for very rational hopes, especially
where there was an absolute certainty of innocence. Total freedom from
all doubt on that point seemed to justify almost more than hopes. This
might be said, and most people would have been more or less consoled by
it. I was not. I felt as certain, as irredeemably, as hopelessly
certain of the final results as though I had seen the record in the
books of Heaven. 'Hope nothing,' I said to myself; 'think not of hope
in this world, but think only how best to walk steadily, and not to
reel like a creature wanting discourse of reason, or incapable of
religious hopes under the burden which it has pleased God to impose,
and which in this life cannot be shaken off. The countenance of man is
made to look upward and to the skies. Thither also point henceforwards
your heart and your thoughts. Never again let your thoughts travel
earthwards. Settle them on the heavens, to which your Agnes is already
summoned. The call is clear, and not to be mistaken. Little in
_her_ fate now depends upon you, or upon anything that man can do.
Look, therefore, to yourself; see that you make not shipwreck of your
heavenly freight because your earthly freight is lost; and miss not, by
any acts of wild and presumptuous despair, that final reunion with your