him mute, and demanded without giving him time to speak, "Where are you going, West? and why do you leave Cawnpore? has Marriot ordered it?"

More and more astonished, "No," he answered; "I am ordered off at an hour's warning, as I was the first for duty to escort treasure."

Abashed by an answer which instantly placed the precipitate violence of her conduct in the strongest light, she inquired, timidly, " And have I really been mistaken in your journey? and has Marriot nothing to do with it?"

"No, Mrs. Marriot, on my honour, nothing," returned West; and then, as if at once awakened to the nature of her suspicions, he continued, anxiously, but respectfully, "let me have the satisfaction to see you safely home; I trust that you may not suffer from exposure to the sun, or your kind interest in my fate."

"No," said the infatuated Harriet, "that can never be; wherever I go, after what has passed, I can never return to Marriot, and confess that he was right, and I was wrong;" and she threw herself back in the carriage in a passion of tears.

The drum beat, the horse accustomed to the sound, moved on, while West deeply affected by the sorrow he witnessed, tried to soothe his wretched companion, who was not so utterly dead to all feeling of moral right and wrong, as not to have a sense of the misery into which she had cast herself. For an instant she seemed as if, like the repentant prodigal, she would return and confess all, but pride, which fills the mind in proportion as better feelings leave it, gained the mastery, and when West drew the rein to direct his horse towards the home she had forsaken, she put her hand on his arm; "No, drive on; I shall never return, what does it signify to me what is said? I shall not hear it."

West, though he had indulged himself in Mrs. Marriot's society, and had in pure idleness and want of occupation, paid her unremitting attention, had certainly never contemplated such an issue; and was, therefore, at first with the natural feeling of a mind not hardened by habitual guilt, more shocked than gratified by the step she had taken. But vanity, which casts a bandage over the eyes of men in

such circumstances, suggested that the very enormity of her crime was proof of the magnitude of her regard for him; and what men of the world call honour, helped to persuade him, that it would be dishonourable to leave a creature who had thrown herself upon his protection. Fatal and miserable delusion, which leaves the conduct of one human being at the mercy of another, as worthless, as weak. The hour of passion is seldom the hour of conscience. But let those recollect, who then slight it as a friend, that the time must come, when they will be obliged to hear it as an enemy.

CHAPTER XII.

The hand of the reaper

Takes the ears that are hoary,

But the voice of the weeper

Wails manhood in glory.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

AT the usual hour, unfit as he was for such exertion, Marriot went out to his court, to give sentence on a trial for life and death, which was that day to come before him. A native of some respectability had in a fit of jealous fury murdered his wife, and afterwards her mother; who unfortunately meeting him while the bloody poinard was still reeking in his hand, had boldly declared the innocence of her daughter.

Marriot felt a dreadful interest in this trial, which increased the fever that preyed upon him. Many witnesses were examined, and the whole charge clearly made out against the prisoner, who during the trial stood at first re

solutely listening; and, far from seeming to feel either fear for himself or repentance for his acts, gloried in the ample revenge he had taken, and, pointing to the spots upon his clothes, muttered, "Blood can wash out shame;" but when in the further course of the investigation, the innocence of his unhappy wife was proved beyond a doubt, and the cause of his mistake fully explained, the dormant fiend was roused; remorse seized him, he tore his beard with his hands, scattered dust upon his head, and uttering a shriek which rung through the court house, made a spring from the earth, and dashed himself with fearful violence upon the ground, where he lay as if life had parted in the agony. In an instant all was confusion; some drew back as if they expected to see the spirit of evil claim his prey, and others called for water. "Remove his irons," said Mr. Marriot, overpowered by sympathy which made him forget the murderer in the wretched sufferer. "Send to the hospital and get a doctor to bleed him." The irons were taken off, and water thrown on his face; still he lay to all appearance dead;