"Helen! explain this mystery!" he exclaimed, grasping her hand, and drawing her to the window. "Are your cosmetics all poisons as deadly as that?"
"Walter! this is horrible! Poison? Why, Walter, it might have killed me!" she gasped, hiding her pallid face in his bosom.
"Helen, answer me, by the love and trust I bear you, did you know that the contents of that _flacon_ were poisonous? Look up, dear Helen, and answer me, yes or no."
"No, Walter--on my honor, no. You have saved me from a horrible death," she replied, raising her head, and looking, with a strong effort into his eyes.
Thus was Helen driven, with scourges, by her task-master, the great tempter of souls, into slough after slough, from which, there was but one escape, and that lay through a rugged way, called REPENTANCE. But repentance, to her vision, was like a shoreless ocean, or a fierce deity to whose exacting nature she must sacrifice all that she held dear on earth, or perish. But her husband's love and esteem--her ill-gotten riches--her position--her luxuries! Could she live without them? _If she could repent without making restitution_, she would. But she well knew that such repentance would be fruitless. And thus, while, to the world, she moved calmly in her proud beauty, and was envied by the miserable, for the apparent happiness and splendor of her lot, a fierce beast was tugging at her heart-strings, more savage than that which tore the vitals of the boy of Lacedaemon. It was remorse.
"Helen!" said Walter Jerrold, calmly, "have you any grief or mystery hidden from me, my wife? I am like a helpless child, now in your hands; you may deceive me, and triumph in your concealment--but do not--do not, Helen, for God's sake, do it. Open your whole heart to me. I love you well enough to lift the burden, if there be one, from it, to my strong shoulders; and if--if--if--you have ever erred, let me hear it from no lips but your own."
Helen would have cast herself at his feet and told him all, but she feared he would spurn her--she longed to deserve the love of his manly and honest heart, but too weak, too much a coward, she shrunk from the agony and peril of a confession of her guilt. And Jerrold! was he not mad to expect to find a true and loving spouse in one who had cast off her allegiance to God?