"When, laying aside all human pride, all human fears," solemnly replied Mr. Lacy, "in meek distrust of your own judgment, in deep humility of spirit, you make, as the Church requires, a special confession of your sins to one, who, if you truly repent and believe, can absolve you from them, by the authority committed to him by our Lord Jesus Christ."
Ellen listened to these words in deep silence, and Mr. Lacy did not interrupt her meditation. After a long pause daring which she seemed absorbed in the most intense thought, she once more extended her hand to him, and said, "I think, I hope, that a change has come over me. Thoughts are crowding upon my mind, that never came there before, and things begin to appear to me in a new light. Perhaps it is from the approach of death, which since yesterday has seemed to draw very near to me; and to one who has suffered as I have suffered, death, if it could be robbed of its terror, ought not to be very dreadful. I have often said, 'Would that I could lay myself down and die;' but now, now that I see death coming in its stern reality, I would fain shrink from it; and yet nothing but the cold hand of death will ever still the passionate throbbings of my heart, and teach it to love less wildly, or to hate less fiercely. Forgive me, forgive me, Mr. Lacy! Oh, do not turn away from me! God has sent you to me as an angel of mercy, not as the minister of his wrath. You bade me confess my sins. See, I confess them! I will kneel to you!" and Ellen, in spite of Mr. Lacy's efforts to prevent her, flung herself on the ground at his feet, and clung to them in an agony of tears. He instantly raised her, and, replacing her on the sofa, with a voice of authority desired her to be calm, and to compose herself. She obeyed, and in a few minutes, and with an altered manner, she again addressed him. "I cannot confess my sins without revealing the history of my life; my guilt and my sorrows are so closely linked together, that they cannot be separated: but I wish to keep no secret from you—you have brought a vision of peace and of hope before me; and perhaps, when you know how miserable I have been, though how guilty, you may not think me utterly unworthy of it."
"None are unworthy of pardon in the eyes of our adorable Saviour," said Mr. Lacy, "who heartily repent and sue for it; but remember that we must forgive as we hope to be forgiven."
"Since I have seen you and heard you," said Ellen, "I can pray, I dare pray, and I will pray that God may change my heart, and teach me to forgive as I hope to be forgiven: and now as I am not strong enough to speak much at a time, and that I wish to open my heart to you without reserve, I will put into your hands a history of my life, which, during days of solitude and nights of weary watchings, I have written—and which will disclose to you all the secrets of my soul; it is the most complete confession I can make. When you have read it, Mr. Lacy, you will return to me. By that time, perhaps, the grace of God will have quelled the storms within me, and I may then hear from your lips the blessed words of absolution."
The following history was contained in the manuscript which
Mr. Lacy carried home with him.
CHAPTER I.
"What thousand voices pass through all the rooms, What cries and hurries! …………………………………. My cousin's death sits heavy on my conscience; hark! …………………………………. In every room confusion, they're all mad. Most certain all stark mad within the house."
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
I was born and educated in the house of my uncle, Mr. Middleton, one of the wealthiest squires in D—shire. He had received my mother with kindness and affection, on her return from India, where she had lost her husband and her eldest child. She was his youngest and favourite sister, and when after having given birth to a daughter she rapidly declined in health, and soon after expired, bequeathing that helpless infant to his protection, he silently resolved to treat it as his own, and, like most resolutions formed in silence, it was religiously adhered to. At the time of my birth, my uncle was about forty years old; a country gentleman in the most respectable sense of the word.
Devoted to the improvement of his tenants on the one hand, and to that of his estate on the other; zealous as a magistrate, active as a farmer, charitable towards the poor, and hospitable towards the rich, he was deservedly popular with his neighbours, and much looked up to in his county. He had been attached in his youth to the daughter of a clergyman of eminent abilities and high character, who resided in the neighbourhood of Elmsley. For six years his father had opposed his intended marriage with Miss Selby, and when at the end of that time he extorted from him a reluctant consent, it was too late to press his suit; she was dying of a hopeless decline, and to cheer her few remaining days of life by every token of the most devoted affection, and after her death to mourn deeply and silently over the wreck of his early hopes, was the conclusion of an attachment to which Mr. Middleton had looked, as to the source and means of all his future happiness. At the age of thirty-five he became possessed, by his father's death, of the manor-house of Elmsley, and of the large property adjoining to it. In the happiness which his wealth gave him the means of diffusing around him, in the friendly attachment with which he was regarded by those among whom he now fixed his residence, he found subjects of interest, and sources of gratification, which gradually obliterated the traces of his early affliction.