'Just as I conjectured,' muttered Stanley, with a bitter smile, as he
shook the ashes off the top of his cigar--'a woman's homily.'

He read on, and a livid frown gradually contracted his forehead as he did
so.

'I do not know, Stanley, what your feelings may be. Mine have been the
same ever since that night in which I was taken into a confidence so
dreadful. The circumstances are fearful; but far more dreadful to me, the
mystery in which I have lived ever since. I sometimes think I have only
myself to blame. But you know, my poor brother, why I consented, and with
what agony. Ever since, I have lived in terror, and worse, in
degradation. I did not know, until it was too late, how great was my
guilt. Heaven knows, when I consented to that journey, I did not
comprehend its full purpose, though I knew enough to have warned me of my
danger, and undertook it in great fear and anguish of mind. I can never
cease to mourn over my madness. Oh! Stanley, you do not know what it is
to feel, as I do, the shame and treachery of my situation; to try to
answer the smiles of those who, at least, once loved me, and to take
their hands; to kiss Dorcas and good Dolly; and feel that all the time I
am a vile impostor, stained incredibly, from whom, if they knew me, they
would turn in horror and disgust. Now, Stanley, I can bear anything but
this baseness--anything but the life-long practice of perfidy--that, I
will not and cannot endure. _Dorcas must know the truth._ That there is a
secret jealously guarded from her, she does know--no woman could fail to
perceive that; and there are few, Stanley, who would not prefer the
certainty of the worst, to the anguish of such relations of mystery and
reserve with a _husband_. She is clever, she is generous, and has many
noble qualities. She will see what is right, and do it. Me she may hate,