apply them to repair victor s losses and i you not to suffer this fall of his to interfere with your designs respecting his journey this lesson will be a to him your forgiveness more effectual than any punishment and his removal from this dreadful place will separate him from his you do not speak ah mr you do not believe me a willing agent in all this the old man gazed upon her with the deepest a wreck compassion and as she arose from her chair and approached him in the ess of her pleading he rose also and taking her hand kindly and respectfully he said � my dear lady my poor child no one could believe such things of you you are right in your opinion of victor and i thank you for your kind judgment of him i will not change my arrangements he shall go next week as we intended as for this � he laid his hand on the jewel box � it is impossible do not pain me by urging it i can assure you we have not even temporary inconvenience let me tell you of victor s purposes as returned home from this visit she had made with such dread she felt that a new friend was raised up for her in victor s kind uncle she determined to withdraw at once from taking any part in the of that house on which she now looked with such horror and if possible to induce her husband to let her return to the north but she had many a wreck weary hours before her ere she could even attempt to carry out her wishes she did not see her husband sometimes for days together and on this occasion he did not enter her apartments until the afternoon fixed for her next reception she sat in her usual place by the window and the sound of her husband s step called an eager brightness to her eyes though the pale cheek was as as it had been since that fatal night as de s eyes fell on her he started and approached her with a sort of interest good evening you are ill p no i am well enough thank you k well why not at your toilet our friends will be here in an hour i cannot see any one to night she hesitated a moment then raising herself she looked in his face � will you send me home a wreck he looked sternly into her eyes and answered deliberately no pray when have you heard from home as you call it not for a year she sighed you have taken some time to grow for those who have so long forgotten you now i will call i can see no one to night she repeated faintly you must madame the careless command roused her and she sprang up i will not she repeated to night or ever again i know all now � how you live your with how you have degraded me in the eyes of the world and knowing all i will not be any longer a party to such i enter those rooms no more as hostess and if you compel me i will declare what you are and why i am brought there and confounded at this burst of indignation he stood silent for an instant then a wreck advanced fiercely towards her with what purpose he himself hardly knew she did not give way one step but confronted him pale and resolute with her burning eyes fixed on his a thousand thoughts flashed across his mind in a moment convictions of her sincerity of her indifference to consequences fears of her revenge and uncertainty of how much she knew mingled with his rage against her and his e for vengeance it was but a moment his habitual caution prevailed and uttering an he said � then these rooms are your prison till you die and left the room the door behind him when victor called two days after to bid her farewell he was told that she was very ill with brain fever and in a few weeks it was reported among her acquaintances that the fever had left her hopelessly though insane a few words of sympathy and regret and a wreck then the waves closed over lier and de rejoiced in his successful falsehood in his lingering revenge chapter xiv the fall of the leaf out of my last home dark and cold i shall pass to the city whose streets are gold from the silence that falls upon sin and pain to the j of the angels strain well shall be ended that ill begun out of the shadow into the mrs sat in the kitchen of the old house at � her hands busily employed in some coarse sewing her thoughts no less busy over the web of life that lay in all its hues in the still chamber of memory the years she had spent beneath this roof were painfully dark to her heart wearing but one gleam of brightness in the thought of her s brilliant marriage and even this was clouded by her unaccountable silence and the fear that in her splendor the fall of the leaf she had grown ashamed of the narrow circumstances of her family in mrs s mind there was a strange mingling of bitterness at this supposed forgetfulness or rather neglect and of apology for what she considered was scarcely to be wondered at and she glanced round her with the thought � this is indeed no place for the de yet she might have had with her for a while i counted on her aid in getting married how will that ever be shut up here as she is what can i do with her true wanted to have her visit new york but what would a marriage be in their set she 