eternity, eternity! Frightful, unspeakable woe! No end!--no bottom!--no
shore!--no hope!--O God! O God!"

Mrs. Marvyn's eyes grew wilder,--she walked the door, wringing her
hands,--and her words, mingled with shrieks and moans, became whirling
and confused, as when in autumn a storm drives the leaves in dizzy
mazes.

Mary was alarmed,--the ecstasy of despair was just verging on insanity.
She rushed out and called Mr. Marvyn.

"Oh! come in! do! quick!--I'm afraid her mind is going!" she said.

"It is what I feared," he said, rising from where he sat reading his
great Bible, with an air of heartbroken dejection. "Since she heard this
news, she has not slept nor shed a tear. The Lord hath covered us with a
cloud in the day of his fierce anger."

He came into the room, and tried to take his wife into his arms. She
pushed him violently back, her eyes glistening with a fierce light.
"Leave me alone!" she said,--"I am a lost spirit!"

These words were uttered in a shriek that went through Mary's heart like
an arrow.

At this moment, Candace, who had been anxiously listening at the door
for an hour past, suddenly burst into the room.

"Lor' bress ye, Squire Marvyn, we won't hab her goin' on dis yer way,"
she said. "Do talk _gospel_ to her, can't ye?--ef you can't, I will."