She is mine! She regards me as her benefactor. My Sophy, my darling wife! she is the good angel sent by a relenting God to snatch me from perdition! My heart cleaves to my new-found treasure; and, wonder of wonders! she loves me. Loves me—the murderer! While her arms encircle me, the hot breath of the fiend ceases to scorch my brain.
My felicity has been of short duration. The mother of Martin has returned, and is living in our immediate neighbourhood. This bodes me no good. The raven of remorse is again flapping her black wings around my head. My sleep is haunted by frightful dreams. "There is no peace for the wicked." The sight of this woman fills me with dismay.
My wife is unhappy. She does not complain, but her cheeks are deadly pale, and she is wasted to a shadow. I dare not inquire the cause of her grief. I remember the sad, patient face of my mother, and I tremble lest Sophy has discovered my guilt.
Oh God! she knows it all. She asked me a question yesterday that has sealed my doom. Instead of falling at her feet, and pouring out the sorrows of my heart, I spoke harshly to her—even threatened to strike her if she alluded to the subject again. Will she be able to keep the dreadful secret? I tremble before a young girl,—I dare not meet her eyes. If she breathes a word to the mother of Martin, I am lost.
Here the felon's manuscript abruptly terminated. Sophy still held it tightly in her hand, although her eyes, now blinded with tears, were unable to trace a single letter of the concluding page.
"My poor husband!" at last she sobbed, "the punishment of Cain was light when compared with yours. Oh! let me hope that He, who willeth not the death of a sinner, has accepted your repentance and pardoned your sin."