CHAPTER XIV.
UNGENEROUS BENEVOLENCE.
As the time went on, and Letty saw nothing more of Tom, she began to revive a little, and feel as if she were growing safe again.

The tide of temptation was ebbing away; there would be no more deceit; never again would she place herself in circumstances whence might arise any necessity for concealment.

She began, much too soon, alas! to feel as if she were newborn; nothing worthy of being called a new birth can take place anywhere but in the will, and poor Letty's will was not yet old enough to give birth to anything; it scarcely, indeed, existed.

The past was rapidly receding, that was all, and had begun to look dead, and as if it wanted only to be buried out of her sight.

For what is done is done, in small faults as well as in murders; and, as nothing can recall it, or make it not be, where can be the good in thinking about it ?--a reasoning worse than dangerous, before one has left off being capable of the same thing over again.