"The Honourable Miss Enfield had so well arranged matters, that we entered the house without having excited the least suspicion of my absence throughout the night. And now commenced a new species of existence for me. My whole life suddenly appeared to be wrapped up in the promise which Lord Dunstable had given me to make me his wife. We corresponded often; and his letters to me invariably contained a note from the Honourable Captain Cholmondeley to Miss Enfield. A fortnight after the meeting which was so fatal to my honour, Adeline obtained permission for us to go out again; and we proceeded to Hyde Park, where our lovers joined us. An invitation to the Captain's private residence was again given; the weather was, however, fine—we could walk in the Park—and I positively refused. But Adeline and Cholmondeley disappeared for more than an hour! Dunstable was as kind and tender to me as I could wish: still he did not volunteer a single observation concerning our marriage; and, when I gently alluded to it, he declared that he was hastening his arrangements. Then he changed the conversation. At length the Captain and Adeline returned; and we parted with our lovers, promising to meet them again in a fortnight.
"The two weeks passed away: we met again; and on this occasion the invitation to Cholmondeley's house was renewed—insisted upon—and, alas! accepted. I will not dwell upon this portion of my narrative. Suffice it to say that Cholmondeley's residence was converted into the scene of unlawful pleasure and voluptuousness,—that Adeline with her lover in one room, and myself with Dunstable in another, entered upon a career of wantonness, which grew more insatiable as it progressed!
"Seven months had passed since the first meeting in Hyde Park; and Lord Dunstable never spoke of marriage—never started the subject of his own accord. I often questioned him on the point; and he invariably replied that his arrangements were not yet complete. At length the dream of hope and pleasure in which Adeline and myself had existed for half-a-year, was suddenly dissolved. Hastily-written letters were one morning received by us from our lovers, stating that they were about to proceed on a continental tour; that they had not leisure to meet us for the sake of taking leave; but that, on their return at the expiration of a few months, they should be delighted to renew the intimacy. Not a word of marriage in either letter!
"That night, at eleven o'clock, Adeline came to my garret. I was reduced to despair; and could offer her no consolation, although she needed it even more—oh! far more than I. The moment she found herself alone with me, she gave way to a paroxysm of grief—a convulsion of anguish, which alarmed me. I implored her to restrain her emotions, or we should be overheard. She sank upon my bed; and I soon perceived that she was enduring great bodily pain in addition to deep mental affliction. An idea of the terrible truth flashed through my brain: she was in the agony of premature labour!
"I had not even suspected her condition until that moment. I was bewildered—I knew not what to do. At length I thought it advisable, at all hazards, to alarm the house, and procure medical attendance. But as I was rushing towards the door for that purpose, Adeline caught me by the hand; and, turning towards me her countenance—her ghastly pale countenance, with an expression of indescribable anguish and alarm, she said, 'For God's sake, remain with me! If another be made acquainted with my shame, I will not survive this disgrace.' I locked the door cautiously, and returned to the bed-side. And there—in a miserable garret, and in the depth of a cold winter's night,—with a nipping frost upon the window, and the bright moon high in the heavens,—there, attended only by myself, did the delicately-nurtured Adeline Enfield give birth to a male child. But the little infant's eyes never opened even for a moment upon this world: it was born dead!
"An hour afterwards Adeline dragged herself back to the room in which she slept. That was a fearful night for us both: it was for me—it must have been for her! I never closed my eyes: this terrible event weighed upon my soul like a crime. I felt as if I had been the accomplice in some awful deed of darkness. The cold and placid moon seemed to reproach me—as if its bright orb were heaven's own all-seeing eye!
"I could not endure that calm—unvarying—steadfast light, which appeared to be a glance immoveably fixed upon me. It drove me mad—it pierced my brain. That cloudless moon seemed to shine on none of earth's denizens, save myself. Methought that from its empyrean height it surveyed every nook, every crevice of my lonely garret; and at length so icy became its gaze, that I shuddered from head to foot—my teeth chattered—my limbs grew rigid. There was a deep conviction in my soul that the eye of God was upon me!
"I knelt down at last, and tried to pray. I called upon heaven—I called upon my father—I called upon my brother, to pardon me! Then once more I turned my eyes towards the moon; and its reproachful, chilling glance seemed to penetrate to the depths of my secret soul,—singling me, me out for its maddening scrutiny,—marking me alone, of all the human race, for its calm, but bitter contemplation.
"At length the orb of night was no longer visible from my window, although its silver flood still inundated the dwellings and the country of which my garret commanded a view. Then I grew more tranquil:—but I could not sleep!
"Never was morning more welcome to the guilty imagination haunted by the fearful apparitions of the night, than it was to me. I composed myself as well as I could; but when I surveyed my countenance in the glass, I was dismayed by its awful pallor—its haggardness—its care-worn look. I did not dare plead illness, as an excuse for keeping my chamber; because I was too anxious to ascertain what course Miss Enfield would pursue to escape those inquiries that her appearance, I felt convinced, must elicit. Besides, there was something in my box which—but of that no matter at present.