I feared that with one or other I must comply, unless I was prepared
to come to an actual breach with Lord Glenfallen; full of these
unpleasing doubts and perplexities, I retired to rest. I was wakened,
after having slept uneasily for some hours, by some person shaking
me rudely by the shoulder; a small lamp burned in my room, and by its
light, to my horror and amazement, I discovered that my visitant was
the self-same blind, old lady who had so terrified me a few weeks
before. I started up in the bed, with a view to ring the bell, and
alarm the domestics, but she instantly anticipated me by saying, "Do
not be frightened, silly girl; if I had wished to harm you I could
have done it while you were sleeping, I need not have wakened you;
listen to me, now, attentively and fearlessly; for what I have to say,
interests you to the full as much as it does me; tell me, here, in
the presence of God, did Lord Glenfallen marry you, _actually marry_
you?--speak the truth, woman."

"As surely as I live and speak," I replied, "did Lord Glenfallen marry
me in presence of more than a hundred witnesses."

"Well," continued she, "he should have told you _then_, before you
married him, that he had a wife living, which wife I am; I feel you
tremble--tush! do not be frightened. I do not mean to harm you--mark
me now--you are not his wife. When I make my story known you will be
so, neither in the eye of God nor of man; you must leave this house
upon to-morrow; let the world know that your husband has another wife
living; go, you, into retirement, and leave him to justice, which will
surely overtake him. If you remain in this house after to-morrow you
will reap the bitter fruits of your sin," so saying, she quitted the
room, leaving me very little disposed to sleep.