CHAPTER XXXI. Love Lies Bleeding. Let us peep over Charley Fitzhugh’s shoulder, and read the letter his eyes seemed to devour so ravenously. It ran thus — “ You and I have done wrong, and ven geance has followed sooner than either of us anticipated. Don’t tell me that the strength of our mutual attachment palli ates it in the least degree. It does not. It was a crime to leave that good man whom 1 had sworn to love. It was doubly a crime on your part to desert the wife you were \ound to protect, the children God had given you, and to purloin her and their money. Of that, sir, I am innocent, for I did not know it, nor would 1 have given my consent. Not that I would excuse myself. The blackness of my wickedness haunts mo, and I, alas! know not how to make reparation. I have taken the life of a true man into my hand, and deliberately crushed it. For me there appears no place of repentance save the grave. You are differently circumstanced. You can, and I hope and trust will, restore your wife’s money. You can save yourself from appal ling punishment by returning to her, for she has forgiven once, and no doubt would forgive again. Do let me beg you, there fore, to take the course conscience and common-sense must alike suggest. For give me, for I have been indeed a curse to you, and let us both atone, as far as we can, for the mischief and sorrow we have created. 1 toll you once for all, lam firm. I do not intend of my own free will to be dragged down to Hell, still less to drag you after me. That is final, and so also my farewell. “ Lilias.” “ You want an answer,” he demanded of Mr Robinson, curtly. “ I do.” “ Then report, if you please, that I shall duly attend the appointment I made with your parsonic colleague.” “ Will you ?” muttered Mr Robinson, as he at once hui-ried off to Mr Poikilus. The mail had arrived, and with it the warrant for his apprehension, and he hoped it might be executed forthwith.
