"'We must pray to God, Alice, to enlighten this awful darkness.'
"'Pray!—I cannot pray. I am too hard—too proud to pray. God has forsaken and left me to myself. If I could discern one ray of light—one faint glimmer only, I might cherish hope.'
"There was something so truly melancholy, in this description of the state of her mind, Geoffrey, that I could not listen to her with dry eyes.
"Alice, for her part, shed no tears, but regarded my emotions with a look of mingled pity and surprise, while the latent insanity, under which I am sure she is labouring, kindled a glow on her death-pale face. Rising slowly in the bed, she grasped my arm—
"'Why do you weep?' said she. 'Do you dare to think me guilty of that nameless crime? Margaretta Moncton, you should know me better. Don't you remember the ballad we once learned to repeat, when we were girls together?—
"'Not mine to scowl a guilty eye,
Or bear the brand of shame;
Oh, God! to brook the taunting look
Of Fillan's wedded dame.
"'But the lady bore the brand in spite of all her boasting. But I do not. I am a wife—His lawful wedded wife, and my boy was no child of shame, and he dare not deny it. And yet,' she continued, falling back upon her pillow, and clutching the bed-clothes in her convulsive grasp, 'he spurned me from him—me, his wife—the mother of his child. Yes, Miss Moncton, spurned me from his presence, with hard words and bitter taunts. I could have borne the loss of his love, for I have long ceased to respect him. But this—this has maddened me.'