"And I will assist you in the sad task," returned Eliza. "Nay—offer no objection: I am determined. To-night, at eleven o'clock, I will meet you in the garden near the wicket leading into the fields. You must be provided with the necessary implements for the purpose. In respect to the casket of jewels, leave it where it is—leave it to that dreadful man who will not long remain at large to dishonour human nature with his atrocities; for he and his present master will fall together—and the same knell shall ring for them both!"
"I understand you, madam," said Quentin. "That casket could never return to the possession of Lady Ravensworth, with safety to herself."
The valet then retired; and Eliza hurried back to Adeline's apartments.
There a most painful—a most distressing scene took place.
The nurse was dismissed with the child into a remote chamber of the same suite; and when Eliza was alone with Adeline, she broke to the miserable lady her knowledge of the fearful crime which had put an end to the existence of Lydia Hutchinson.
And, oh! how gently—how delicately—and in what a purely Christian spirit of charity, did Eliza perform this most difficult—this most melancholy duty!
It was not as an avenger, menacing the thunders of the law, that Eliza spoke: it was not as one prepared to deliver up the criminal to justice, that she addressed herself to Lady Ravensworth. No:—it was as a true disciple of Him with whom is vengeance as well as mercy, that she communed with Adeline: and this wretched woman found, to her astonishment, that she possessed a friend who would pray with her, solace her, and conceal her guilt, instead of a being prepared to expose, to disgrace, and to abandon her upon the plea of performing a duty which every one owes to society!
Then, when Lady Ravensworth was sufficiently composed—when the first terrific shock was over,—she related, truly and minutely, her entire history: she revealed to Eliza all those particulars of her connexion with Lydia Hutchinson, which are known to the reader; she concealed nothing—for the unparalleled generosity of Eliza's mind and conduct aroused in Adeline's heart all the better feelings of her sex and nature.
Though the crime of murder is so horrible that there exists for it scarcely the shadow of extenuation,—still when the case of Lady Ravensworth was calmly considered,—when it was remembered how she had been goaded to madness and desperation by the conduct of Lydia Hutchinson,—when all the circumstances that united at the time to cause her reason to totter upon its seat, were dispassionately viewed,—even the well-ordered mind of Eliza Sydney was induced to admit that, if ever such shadow of extenuation did exist, it was in this most lamentable episode in the history of the human race.
And, oh! with what feelings of profound—ineffable gratitude did Adeline throw herself at the feet of that angel who seemed to have been sent from above to teach her that there was hope for even the greatest criminal, and that "there is more joy in heaven over the repentance of one sinner than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance!"