"Aunt," interrupted Clarence, in a firm and solemn tone, as he raised her from her suppliant posture, and placed her in a chair,—"answer me as if you were questioned by your God! Are your hands unstained with the blood——"
"Holy heavens! would you believe me capable of murder?" cried Mrs. Torrens, in a penetrating, thrilling tone of deep anguish. "Listen, Clarence," she continued, her voice suddenly becoming low and hollow, as she rose also from her seat and laid her emaciated hand upon his arm,—"listen, Clarence, for a few moments. I have been of all hypocrites the most vile—I have led a dissolute life, the profligacy of which has been concealed beneath the mask of religion—I have subsisted upon the wages paid to me by a paramour for the use of my person—I have forged—I have become the accomplice of the ravisher of innocence,—but a murderess—no—never—never!"
"God be thanked for that assurance, which I now sincerely believe!" exclaimed Clarence. "But you speak of being the accomplice of the ravisher of innocence? Is it possible—answer me quickly—that Rosamond—my sister-in-law——"
"Oh! kill me—kill me, Clarence!" cried the miserable woman, again throwing herself at his feet in the anguish of her soul: "kill me, I say—for that was the blackest crime which one woman ever perpetrated towards another!"
"Then all my worst fears are confirmed!" groaned Clarence; and, turning abruptly away from her in sudden loathing and horror, he broke forth into violent ejaculations of rage.
But in less than a minute the sounds of grief, more bitter than his fury was terrible, forced themselves on his ears; and glancing round, he beheld his aunt lying prostrate on the floor, her face buried in the carpet, and her whole frame convulsed with an anguish which in a moment renewed all the feelings of commiseration in his really generous heart.
Springing towards the spot where she had fallen when he burst so rudely away from her, he raised the wretched creature in his arms, conveyed her once more to a seat, and endeavoured to address her in terms of consolation and kindness. He even implored her pardon for what he termed his brutality towards her.
"Oh! you have no forgiveness to ask of me, Clarence," she murmured, in a faint and half-suffocating tone. "Your indignation is most natural—and I am the vilest being in female shape that ever cursed the earth with a baleful presence, or brought dishonour on a glorious sex! My God! when I look back and survey all my crimes—all my misdeeds, I despair of pardon in another world!"
"And now you add another wickedness to those of which you spoke," exclaimed Clarence: "for the mercy of God is infinite! It must be so—it would be an awful sin, a monstrous impiety to believe otherwise! A great and good Being, possessing omnipotent power and a will which there is none to question, can have no pleasure in casting your soul—poor, frail, crushed-down woman!—into a lake of eternal fires! Oh! believe me—there is hope even for greater criminals than yourself! But every atonement which it is possible for you to make upon earth, must be made; and, whatever be your fate amongst beings who forgive nothing, you will experience the blessings of salvation at the hands of a Being who forgives every thing!"
"I am penitent—oh! believe me, Clarence, I am very penitent!" exclaimed his aunt. "Would to God that I could live the last twenty years of my life over again! Not an error—no, not even a frailty should stain my soul! But these thoughts come upon us when it is too late to take them as the guides of our conduct."