“If you really repent your crimes, and have any true pity for the poor creature whose happiness you have wrecked, show it by leaving this place, and ceasing all communication with her.”
This galled Coventry, and he wrote back:
“What! leave the coast clear to Mr. Little? No, Mrs. Coventry; no.”
Grace made no reply, but a great terror seized her, and from that hour preyed constantly on her mind—the fear that Coventry and Little would meet, and the man she loved would do some rash act, and perhaps perish on the scaffold for it.
This was the dominant sentiment of her distracted heart, when one day, at eleven A.M., came a telegram from Liverpool:
“Just landed. Will be with you by four.
“HENRY LITTLE.”
Jael found her shaking all over, with this telegram in her hand.
“Thank God you are with me!” she gasped. “Let me see him once more, and die.”
This was her first thought; but all that day she was never in the same mind for long together. She would burst out into joy that he was really alive, and she should see his face once more. Then she would cower with terror, and say she dared not look him in the face; she was not worthy. Then she would ask wildly, who was to tell him? What would become of him?