"When I wrote that last sentence—when I came to my sister's name, I threw down the pen, and gave myself up for a few minutes to a burst of grief, in which I forgot everything but the misery I was going to bring upon her. As I was searching a drawer for some sealing-wax, my hand touched a book which had lain there for many a day unopened. It was a small New Testament, which she had given me before I went to Oxford. I must hurry on with my story, Ellen, or I would tell you how this accidental circumstance gave a new turn to my thoughts; how I suddenly remembered that when I was a child I had believed what that book taught, and that since, I had never once thought whether I did believe it or not. I knew I was going to die; and there was a certain phrase in that book which seemed very plain to me at that moment, 'It is appointed to all men once to die, and after that the judgment.' I don't know how it happened that I recollected it so well, for it was years since I had read it; but somehow I did; and again I thought that my brain would give way, for kill myself I must; and if that was true, it would not do to think any more; and so I got up and walked to the table. Now, Ellen, listen to me quietly; don't agitate yourself in this manner; for God's sake be calm. If Alice should wake, what would she think?"
I struggled with myself, conquered my agitation, and made a sign to him to go on.
"Just as I was loading the pistol," he said, "some one knocked at the door; I instinctively seized on the case; and putting it into the bureau locked it up, and went to the door. I had expected to see the housemaid or my own servant, and almost staggered back when, on opening it, I saw Mrs. Tracy, Alice's grandmother. Her coming took me so entirely by surprise that I did not attempt at first to send her away, or to conceal from her that I was in a state of mental agitation. I sat down on the nearest chair, and stared at her in silence. She locked the door; and, sitting down opposite to me, said in a calm and perfectly resolute tone of voice:
"'Mr. Henry, you have done something dreadful to-night, and now you intend to do something worse; but you shall not.'
"I tried to rouse myself. I stammered out that she was out of her mind—beside herself; that I was busy, worried; that I begged she would go; that I insisted upon it; and I tried to work myself into a passion. She got up; and looking me full in the face, said sternly,
"'Don 't lie to me, Henry. I know you; I know what you have done; I know what you mean to do, but God has sent me to save you.'
"'None of your cant, Tracy,' I now exclaimed in a violent passion; 'leave me; this moment leave me.'
"'Mr. Henry,' she said, 'do you remember this?' and she put something into my hands.
"What a strange change is sometimes wrought in us in an instant, Ellen! It was a small picture of my mother—of her who died in giving me birth—of her whose image had often stood between me and temptation, and delayed the ruin it could not avert. I had given this miniature to Tracy, and had charged her to keep it for me on the day when I first left home for school. It brought back to my mind a train of childish recollections, and vague reminiscences, which completely overcame me. I pressed the picture to my lips. My pride gave way; tears burst from my eyes; and in that moment of emotion I confessed the whole truth to her. She had guessed it all before.
"Her brother had been aware for some time past how deeply I was involved in debt. He knew the state of my affairs, and that I neither possessed, nor had the means of raising a single shilling. Escourt, with whom he had some previous acquaintance, had informed him, as they met at the door of the office, that I had just paid him the large sum of £3,500. These facts, coupled with my paleness and incoherence; my pretending that the key was at my lodgings, while he perfectly knew that my father had given it me a moment before in the office; above all, my telling him that I was not going home, and appointing him for the next morning, while, by dodging me in the streets, he ascertained that I had gone straight home;—all this had left no doubt in his mind as to the state of the case; and his sister happening to be in town, and at his house, he had imparted to her his surmises. All this she repeated to me; and then, crossing her arms and standing before mo, she said, 'And now what is to be done?'