pointed to it, and falling on her knees beside it, murmured, "Hush, it
sleeps below,--thy child!" She covered her face with both her hands, and
her form shook convulsively.

Beside that form and before that grave knelt Maltravers. There vanished
the last remnant of his stoic pride; and there--Evelyn herself
forgotten--there did he pray to Heaven for pardon to himself, and
blessings on the heart he had betrayed. There solemnly did he vow, the
remainder of his years, to guard from all future ill the faithful and
childless mother.



CHAPTER VI.

WILL Fortune never come with both hands full,
But write her fair words still in foulest letters?
_Henry IV._ Part ii.

I PASS over those explanations, that record of Alice's eventful history,
which Maltravers learned from her own lips, to confirm and add to the
narrative of the curate, the purport of which is already known to the
reader.

It was many hours before Alice was sufficiently composed to remember the
object for which she had sought the curate. But she had laid the letter
which she had brought, and which explained all, on the table at the
vicarage; and when Maltravers, having at last induced Alice, who seemed
afraid to lose sight of him for an instant, to retire to her room, and
seek some short repose, returned towards the vicarage, he met Aubrey in