Let this subject now close forever." Mr.Fielden left her presence with less anxious and commiserating feelings,--perhaps all had chanced for the best.

And on returning home, his whole mind became absorbed in alarm for Susan.

She was delirious, and in great danger; it was many weeks before she recovered.

Meanwhile, Lucretia had removed into private apartments, of which she withheld the address.

During this time, therefore, they lost sight of her.
If amidst the punishments with which the sombre imagination of poets has diversified the Realm of the tortured Shadows, it had depicted some soul condemned to look evermore down into an abyss, all change to its gaze forbidden, chasm upon chasm yawning deeper and deeper, darker and darker, endless and infinite, so that, eternally gazing, the soul became, as it were, a part of the abyss,--such an image would symbol forth the state of Lucretia's mind.
It was not the mere desolation of one whom love has abandoned and betrayed.